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(Bolbenrob jFarm 


BY 

JENNIE M.„DRINKWATER 
t Author of “ Dolly French's Household ” 





i) 


0 ' 



PHILADELPHIA 

A. J. ROWLAND — 1420 Chestnut Street 

1897 

is. 







Copyright 1897 by 
A. J. Rowland 


jfrom tbc Ipress of tbc 
Bmerican baptist publication Society 


Standing with reluctant feet 
Where the brook and river meet , 
Womanhood and childhood fleet . 

O, thou child of many prayers , 

Life hath quicksands , . . 

Morning rises into noon , 

May glides onward into June . 

— Longfellow 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I 

The “ Child of Many Prayers,” 7 

CHAPTER II 

That Girl, 40 

CHAPTER III 

Yarmouth Station, 73 

CHAPTER IY 

Something New, 82 

CHAPTER V 

Plans, 93 

CHAPTER VI 

In Her “Woodland Dress,” 98 

CHAPTER VII 

Faith Cottage, 112 

CHAPTER VIII 

In the Pine Chamber, 124 

CHAPTER IX 

Illusions, 134 

CHAPTER X 

Harry Morse, 152 

CHAPTER XI 

On Both Sides of the Sea, 160 


5 


6 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER XII 

Betsey, 171 

CHAPTER XIII 

The Second Touch, 185 

CHAPTER XIY 

From Over the Sea, 201 

CHAPTER XY 

An Inspiration, 208 

CHAPTER XYI 

A Good Hope, 225 

CHAPTER XYII 

Shar, 234 

CHAPTER XYIII 

Beauty and Work, 241 

CHAPTER XIX 

Offerings, 250 

CHAPTER XX 

Her Own House, 267 


GOLDENROD FARM 


CHAPTER I 

THE “CHILD OF MANY PRAYERS ” 

Life went a-maying 

With nature, hope, and poesy, 

When I was young. 

— Coleridge. 

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be 
lost ; that is where they should be ; now put foundations under 
them. — Thoreau. 

T HE green slope, rugged with rocks, touched the 
edge of the water, and everywhere grew the 
goldenrod. 

There was nothing else about the woods or pasture 
or among the rocks that the child Elizabeth loved as 
she loved the goldenrod. 

Every summer when she went home to Portland she 
carried, or had carried for her, huge bunches that dried 
themselves in jars for her winter bouquets. These 
bouquets were for the people she loved best, Mary 
Mainwaring and Mr. Hamilton. 

Her Uncle Howard called the place Goldenrod Farm 

7 


8 


GOLDENROD FARM 


to please the fancy of the child. She said no name 
was so pretty in all her story books. 

“I wish you would give Goldenrod Farm to me,” 
she said one day. 

“I cannot do that/’ her uncle replied, as he lifted 
her from the boat and set her upon a rock; “ it will be- 
long to your Cousin Howard.” 

‘ ‘ But I will give him a great deal of money for it, ’ ’ 
insisted the small heiress. 

“ A great deal of money cannot buy it, little maid.” 

Elizabeth scrambled over the rocks, a chubby child 
in a white flannel dress, and walked up to the house. 

Her Cousin Howard, a boy twice her age, was carry- 
ing a basket of clams around to the door of the shed. 
She followed him into the shed and stood considering 
him with attentive eyes. 

“ Cousin Howard, I have a great deal of money, you 
know. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ What a shame for people to tell the child such 
things ! ” broke in a voice harshly. 

“ Isn’t it true?” questioned Elizabeth, confronting 
her aunt. 

“ Why, yes, I suppose it is true. But what good 
does it do you to know it ? ” 

“ It doesn’t do any good, if I haven’t enough to buy 
all the goldenrod, ’ ’ she answered sadly. 

‘ ‘ All the goldenrod in the country ? ’ ’ laughed the 
boy ; “ no, Princess Elizabeth, you haven’t half enough 
for that.” 

As the child stepped out of the shed and walked 


0 


THE “ CHILD OF MANY PRAYERS ” 

away, her aunt exclaimed : ‘ ‘ What a shame to put ideas 
into her head; I wish w T e might have had her. But I 
am glad she loves goldenrod better than gold. Her 
father never had any idea of the worth of money.’ ’ 

‘ ‘ But he had an idea when he married a rich 
widow,” came with a hearty laugh from the doorway 
where Elizabeth’s uncle stood; “ my lawyer brother 
knew how to feather his nest.” 

Elizabeth caught the strange words and ran down the 
road to her sister Isabel to ask what people did when 
they feathered their nest. 

Isabel stopped to pick up a sweet apple that had 
fallen on the grass ; she tasted it and tossed it away. 

“ Elizabeth, where do you find such queer w T ords ? 
Yesterday you asked me what fleeing from temptation 
meant. ’ ’ 

“I like words. I always get them. I don’t want 
to go home. You said we go home because it is Octo- 
ber. I would like to stay because it is October.” 

“ But the wind will howl, and what a fog we had last 
night, and all the goldenrod will die.” 

“Then I w r ould like to stay till it dies,” coaxed 
Elizabeth. 

4 ‘ I would never bring you here, but that I promised 
mamma I would never let you forget the place where 
your father was born. The girls never will come with 
you, and I have to.” 

4 ‘ I will come alone next summer. I shall always 
come. I’ll never forget it.” 

‘ ‘ Some day we will go to beautiful places all over 


10 


GOLDENROD FARM 


the world, when you are a big girl, to the mountains, 
and the lakes, and everywhere.” 

” You may go,” said the child with her usual deter- 
mination ; “ Uncle Howard said in the boat that I 
might come here as long as I live.” 

“ You are a country child,” said her sister. “ You 
should have been born in that house and grown up as 
homespun as a kitchen towel. What shall I do with 
you to make you a lady ? ’ 9 

“ Let me alone,” said Elizabeth. 

Isabel wrote to Mrs. Hinchley, the housekeeper, that 
Elizabeth begged for a drive home, ‘ ‘ a long, beautiful 
drive,” and that she would humor her, for it was 
breaking her heart to leave the country, and that 
Hinchley must not grumble and write a letter saying 
the road was not good for the horses, but he must come 
on Wednesday, put himself and his horses up at the 
small hotel in the village, and come for them at eight 
o’clock Thursday morning. 

“ The girls are all at home,” Isabel said coaxingly 
to her little sister Wednesday evening at early bedtime. 
“ Cynthia always brings you pretty things, and Jessica 
will take you out every day in the carriage, or on a 
long walk, and Martha says she will be a real doll’s 
dressmaker for you and fit all your family out in fine 
style. And there are the Mainwarings, your beautiful 

Miss Mary and dear Uncle Hamilton ” 

“ But he isn’t my real uncle. Cousin Howard said 
it was not true when I call him uncle ; I will never say 
it again.” 


11 


THE “ CHILD OF MANY PRAYERS ” 

“ He will be sorry, I think. He is your guardian ; 
dear mamma chose Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Mainwaring 
to take care of our money and advise us in trouble.’ ’ 

“ But we aren’t in trouble, are we ? ” the child asked, 
with surprised and bewildered eyes. 

“ Not now ; but we had to have some one to tell us 
the best thing to do after mamma died.” 

‘ ‘ I know the best thing to do. ’ ’ 

“ I do not and the girls do not. We are glad to go 
to Mr. Mainwaring. He is very wise ; he owns ships 
and knows what to do with money.” 

“ So do I, but I can’t do it,” sighed the child whose 
money could not buy her heart’s desire. “ Mr. Hamil- 
ton cannot help me, either. All the books in his study 
cannot tell him how to get Goldenrod Farm away from 
Cousin Howard.” 

“Elizabeth, you are a covetous child; you are 
greedy and grasping. You have it all, you own all 
you can enjoy.” 

“ But nobody can take it away from Cousin Howard. 
Somebody can take it away from me. That isn’t own- 
ing it. I don’t believe you know what owning a thing 
is. It is not having things taken away from you.” 

‘ £ But you have it now, dear. ’ ’ 

“ I want it then — when I grow up. Cousin Howard 
will have it when he grows up.” 

“ Don’t you know it is wicked to covet so?” 
Isabel demanded sternly. 

“ I like to covet so,” pleaded Elizabeth. 

Isabel sighed as she brushed out the tangled brown 


12 


GOLDENROD FARM 


hair ; she felt herself to be as weak as a reed before 
the tempest of her little sister’s will, and her strong 
desires. 

To every argument that the thing she said or did 
was sinful, she had the same reply : 4 4 But I like it. ’ ’ 
4 4 1 wish you did not always know what you want, 
then I could do something with you.” 

4 4 1 would rather do something with myself, ’ ’ Eliza- 
beth answered, not disobediently, but as the statement 
of her own decision. 

44 Well, kneel down now, and say your prayers.” 

44 May I say anything I like? Unc — no, Mr. Ham- 
ilton said I might put everything I wanted in my 
prayers. He said he did.” 

4 4 Do you not always ? ’ ’ 

44 No ; I say what you like.” 

In a clear voice, with her head in her sister’s lap and 
her sister’s hand upon her head, she began her evening 
petition with her usual 4 4 Now, I lay me,” then, after 
a pause, she prayed fervently in a natural voice : 
44 Please, dear God, don’t let the goldenrod die and 
stay dead. Please keep it growing. Don’t let the 
calf grow into a cow before I come again. Don’t let 
Aunt Martha step on Pussy White and hurt it before 
I come next summer. And, if it is wicked to want 
Goldenrod Farm I don’t know how to help it. And 
bless all the rocks and the little fir trees, and all the 
stars in the sky, and make Shar’s mother good to her 
and love her, and make the burn well on Alice’s sore 
hand. Amen.” Then she arose and threw two peni- 


THE “ CHILD OF MANY PRAYERS v 13 

tent and very loving arms about the sister whose eyes 
looked moist and shining in the moonlighted room, and 
then laid her sleepy head upon the pillow, a healthy 
and very tired little girl. 

In the moonlight Isabel walked alone down the road. 
She loved Goldenrod Farm and was glad this summer 
to shut herself away from the world, where people knew 
the history of the past two years. 

The young Englishman, the guest of the Mainwar- 
ings, and a distant relative, who had allowed her friends 
to consider himself engaged to her, had gone home in 
the spring and married his cousin. The words to bind 
them to each other had never been spoken, they had 
no need of spoken words, she often assured herself ; he 
was her true knight. 

Jessica had married Vivian Mainwaring, a second 
cousin to the Mainwaring girls, and her married life in 
England, the brief two years, had changed the beau- 
tiful girl into a more beautiful woman ; she came home 
a widow — that was sorrowful indeed ; but was her sorrow 
like unto her own ? 

Jessica had loved somebody true. 

How could she keep her little sister from sorrow, 
from wrong, from bereavement ; with that will of her 
own, who could lead her into a happier way? But 
who had led her into her own bitter way ? Mr. Main- 
waring had warned her, and she had been angry with 
him ; Mr. Hamilton had asked her if she were sure. 
Of course she was sure, what girl is not ? Was Har- 
old Mainwaring not a relative of the friends she had 


14 


GOLDENROD FARM 


known all her life ? It was all over now, and regret 
was harder to be borne than her first disappointment ; 
she would take her little sister and her goldenrod home 
to-morrow. Her lesson had not cost too dearly if only 
she might shield her little sister. 

There was church work, but she was not a member 
of the church. Not one of the four grown sisters was a 
member of the church. Mr. Hamilton was grieved 
over their ‘ ‘ worldliness 5 ’ ; but then, they said that he 
was grieved over every one who was not an enthusiast 
like himself. 

4 ‘ Mother , 9 9 she murmured, ‘ ‘ I do not know how to 
help the little baby you gave to me. I do not know 
how to help myself. ’ ’ 

October was in its third week when Elizabeth left 
Goldenrod Farm. Her eyes were not dried till after 
the first sobbing, goldenrod-hugging five miles. 

Saturday afternoon she came to Isabel in the library 
holding five dolls in her soiled white apron. 

Isabel and her novel were cozily together before the 
fire on the hearth. She did not lift her eyes until she 
heard the sound of the white inside blind as the child 
pulled it open and pushed it back. 

“ I want to see out — in the street.” 

“ Take that apron off ; that string is in a hard knot; 
let me untie it for you.” 

“No,” said Elizabeth, tugging at the end of the 
white string, ‘ ‘ I can do it myself. ’ ’ 

“You will have a hard time of it.” 


15 


THE “CHILD OF MANY PRAYERS V 

‘ ‘ I like a hard time of it, ’ ’ was the reply in a busy, 
energetic voice. For an hour Isabel turned the pages 
of her novel. She had taken to novel -reading with 
avidity; in that, at least, she could find excitement and 
self-absorption. When she dropped the book with a 
weary sigh, for something had stirred to its depths some 
feeling within herself, Elizabeth had pushed away her 
family of dolls, and Queen Victoria with her crown 
lay sprawling on the carpet beside Dinah, the turbaned 
colored cook, and the mistress of the riotous doll -folk 
stood on a hassock at the large, small -paned window, 
the knot untied, and the soiled white apron thrown 
upon a chair. 

“ I am tired,” sighed the small voice. 

“ Don’t begin life in that way,” reproved Isabel. 
‘ ‘ What are you tired of ? ” 

“ Of you and me and the girls. I want to go back 
to Goldenrod and see Shar.” 

“A child with a rough red head and bare feet. 
Haven’t you any higher wish in thinking of company ? ’ ’ 
‘ ‘ I like Shar. She sings. And her mother gave us 
apple turnovers when she was good. ’ 9 
“ Who was good ? ” 

“Shar’s mother. She was good sometimes and did 
not scold Shar or whip her all the time. I want to see 
baby Alice and play tag with her. And the house 
down the street has a mother in it who is always good. 
There are two boys and Minnie and the baby, a baby 
that is prettier than my Queen Victoria, and she can 
real cry and real laugh, and her long dresses are pret- 


16 


GOLDENROD FARM 


tier than my baby’s long dresses. We haven’t anybody 
but girls.” 

“ Girls are good enough for me. You are a girl 
yourself. ’ ’ 

‘ 4 But Minnie Benson says ‘ father ’ and ‘ mother ’ 
and ‘ baby ’ and ‘the boys,’ and I never have any of 
them to say. I haven’t so many words as she has.” 
“You have words enough, little chatterbox. The 
trouble, very often, is that you have too many words.” 

‘ 4 1 don’ t have her words, or the words in the stories 
you read to me. I told all my dolls just now that they 
must say nothing but ‘ sister ’ and ‘ the girls,’ and they 
looked sorry. I told them I could not explain why. 
They must trust me. I wish I had more words.” 

“ Perhaps more will grow,” replied Isabel lightly. 
Her own words were not growing, but the child’s 
life was not finished as hers was ; twenty years for hope 
to grow before she would be as old and comfortless as 
she was to-day. 

“I wish they would grow to-day. Can you make 
them grow, Isabel ? ’ ’ 

“No,” said Isabel sorrowfully. 

“ I believe I could. I think I could make words.” 
“ Shar Burbank has a poor little home, and you 
have a beautiful home. By and by you are going to 
boarding school, when I can spare you, and after Christ- 
mas Hinchley will take you every day to Miss Revere’ s 
school, where Mary Wentworth goes. And you will 
have little girls, who will be better for you to play with 
than Shar.” 


17 


THE “ CHILD OF MANY PRAYERS 9> 

“ Shar is good. I like Shar. And school isn’t like 
having people at home. I haven’t a little sister. And 
Shar has.” 

“ Nobody can give you flesh and blood people, you 
ridiculous child. You have twenty-seven dolls.” 

“ Dolls,” repeated Elizabeth, with a child’s tone of 
contempt. “ Can’t God give me flesh and blood peo- 
ple, if he wants to, and ever thinks about me ? I be- 
lieve that’s why he likes it up in heaven, because he can 
take people up there whenever he wants to.” 

“ Elizabeth, don’t say such things, child.” 

“Mr. Hamilton said one day God does think about 
me, but I suppose he forgets to think that. I’ll re- 
mind him to-night.” 

“Elizabeth, I don’t know what to do with you. I 
hope school will do it.” 

The fallen yellow leaves were whirling along the street ; 
Mark Benson and Minnie were walking through the 
dusty yellow leaves upon the opposite side of the street. 
Mark was ten years old, three years older than his sister 
and the little girl in white watching at the library win- 
dow. He was tall for his years, of slight build, with a 
face that, even now, Mr. Hamilton spoke of as “intel- 
lectual, ’ ’ and said that his eyes in their expression held 
too much thought for a boy of his years. Elizabeth 
tapped on the small pane ; Mark and Minnie answered 
the tap by a call to her to join them. 

“ Isabel, may I go and walk in the leaves with Mark 
and Minnie ? They want me.” 

B 


18 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ And get your shoes and stockings dusty ? No.” 

The little girl in white, with black silk stockings and 
shoes of French kid, tapped on the pane again and 
shook her head dolefully. 

“ Isabel, Isabel, Julius and Mary have come, and 
they are making a bonfire. And more are coming,” 
she exclaimed excitedly. “Boys and girls I don’t 
know ; oh, I want to go. Minnie and Mark are get- 
ting leaves.” 

“ Elizabeth, how often have I told you that you are 
not to play with children in the street ? ’ ’ 

“Very, very often,” answered Elizabeth mourn- 
fully. 

“ I should think you would be tired of hearing it.” 

‘ ‘ I am very tired of hearing it. ” 

“ Then why do you ask again ? ” reasoned Isabel. 

‘ ‘ I thought I should not hear it this time. I always 
think I shall not hear it next time.” 

4 ‘ Play with your dolls and do not look out of the 
window. ’ 9 

“ I hate dolls ! ” was the vehement, heartbroken 
cry. 

With desolation in every line of her face and figure, 
the little maid in white, with silver bracelets and a 
ring with a tiny diamond, watched the happy children 
in the street as they shuffled in the leaves, or gathered 
them in yellow and red armfuls to pile upon the heap 
burning in the gutter. She counted eleven children ; 
Julius Wentworth was the eldest of the eleven, very 
grown-up to Elizabeth’s imagination. He gave the or- 


THE “ CHILD OF MANY PRAYERS” 


19 


ders and watched the fire. He was thirteen and had 
entered the high school, and Mr. Lefierts said he was a 
boy for his mother to be proud of. Cynthia Gray, the 
musical sister of the family, was giving him lessons on 
the violin. He had glowing dark eyes, an oval face, 
with clear olive complexion, and Elizabeth had heard 
Cynthia say, “ the manner of a prince.” 

He called to her and beckoned with his hand, but 
again she shook her head dolefully, after a mute glance 
at Isabel. 

“ Isabel, what would you do if I should unlock the 
door and run out there and stay ? I can run away. ’ ’ 

“No, you cannot. My little sister does not know 
how to do anything so mean and unladylike.” 

“ I do know how,” said Isabel’s little sister, putting 
her lips tightly together. 

The peal of the door bell announced a visitor. 

“Uncle Hamilton said he was coming this after- 
noon,” remarked Isabel. 

Elizabeth darted toward the door and stood in the 
hall awaiting his entrance with a pretty air of welcome. 

He was her guardian and dear friend. He always 
lifted her in his arms and kissed her. He was big, and 
strong ; she felt glad and safe in his arms ; he kept her 
hand as they went into the library and she stood at his 
side, with her hand on the arm of his chair, or laid con- 
fidingly on his shoulder. 

Reverend Harrington Hamilton was a bachelor ; his 
home was with a maiden sister and invalid mother on 
Danforth Street. 


20 


GOLDENROD FARM 


People said he would marry one of the Gray sisters, 
to whom, since their mother’s death four years ago, he 
had been guardian ; at that time Elizabeth, Cynthia, 
and Martha, were minors, and the three legally under 
his guardianship; to-day Cynthia was nineteen, Martha 
three years her senior, Jessica, the young widow, 
twenty -five, and Isabel, the eldest, twenty-seven. 

From his youthful appearance one would scarcely 
have thought of him as middle-aged ; his brown hair 
was unmixed with gray and his face with its look of 
fine health and shaven cheek and chin, was younger 
than his years ; he was a hard student, but had the 
build of an athlete. He was forty years of age. 

His eyes were as clear and guileless as the eyes of the 
child who stood at his side. He asked her about her 
summer in the country and the tramps in the wood, 
about the calf, and kitten, and her new playfellow, 
Shar Burbank, and her small sister Alice. 

“Thank you for your letter,” she said. “It was 
so long I could not answer it all.” 

“Thank you for yours. My mother said it was a 
sweet letter and she wants you to come to see her. My 
sister has put your jar of goldenrod in my study.” 

She did not notice what Isabel said to him as the two 
talked a long while, she was happy enough to stand at 
his side ; but the words of his reply were burnt into 
her consciousness : 

‘ ‘ God is the head of your house, the father in this 
household of sisters.” 

‘ ‘ Does he want to give us flesh and blood people, 




THE “ CHILD OF MANY PJRAYERS” 


21 


not dolls ? ’ ’ she asked, touching his cheek with her 
hand and bringing his eyes toward her, that she might 
bring her own self into view. 

“ He has given me a great many, a churchful. ,, 

“ I think I would like a houseful, ’ ’ she answered 
confidently. 

“ May you have it some happy day,” he said. “ I 
have heard of a child, 4 Little Kathleen, ’ before she 
was ten years old ” 

“ I am seven,” interrupted the child at his side. 

“She was made a new child, all her old naughtiness 
was gone, and she did beautiful and right things. ’ ’ 

“ Mine isn’t gone yet,” said Elizabeth frankly, with 
a glance at her sister. 

‘ ‘ I should think not, ’ ’ said Isabel laughingly ; * ‘ new 
naughtiness crops out every day. ’ 9 

“You have not read, probably, ‘ Narration of Con- 
versions, 9 by President Edwards ; in it he relates the 
story of a child who at a very early age was a very 
sweet Christian child, and with her, old things had 
passed away.” 

“Hadn’t she a temper?” questioned Elizabeth. 

‘ ‘ Hid she ever run away ? ’ ’ 

“ She had a sweet temper and she was obedient.” 

“ I wish I was like her,” said Elizabeth sorrowfully, 
smoothing his hand with her loving fingers. “ But I 
am a tempest. ’ ’ 

“Tempests clear off,” he encouraged, holding her 
fingers within his palm, “ and then what a clear shining 
there is. I have read about a man whose tempests did 


22 


GOLDENROD FARM 


not clear until he was a hundred years old ; he con- 
fessed Christ on his hundredth birthday. ’ ’ 

“ Were you ever a tempest ? ” she asked, looking up 
into the frank blue eyes. 

He laughed heartily, throwing his head back. 
Elizabeth smiled, but very gravely. 

‘ ‘ I think yours have cleared off. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Mine began to clear off when I was thirteen ; I had 
a mother who never forgot me.” 

“But I haven’t/’ urged Elizabeth, “and Isabel 
does forget me when she writes letters, and reads books, 
and goes to parties, and people come, and she has new 
dresses. ’ ’ 

Isabel frowned, her lip trembled, and stormy tears 
were very near. 

The girls said often that the care and thought for 
the child were wasted, that she had not a particle of 
appreciation and gratitude ; it would do her good to 
send her to her father’s country relatives, to rough it 
and learn by its absence what indulgence was. 

“ I have been interested of late,” began Mr. Hamil- 
ton easily, not glancing at Isabel, “ in learning at what 
age consistent, working Christians were born again. 
Conversing with many I have learned that the average 
age was young. In 4 The Advance ’ of last week there 
was a Symposium on Conversion. Seventy -one minis- 
ters gave the age at which they were born again. It 
was most interesting to me.” 

“It is not at all interesting to me,” was Isabel’s un- 
spoken thought. “What a queer subject to talk to a 


THE “ CHILD OF MANY PRAYERS ” 


23 


child of seven about.” Mr. Hamilton was a dear and 
strong friend, but often he was such a bore. If it 
would have been courteous she would have excused 
herself and left the child of seven to become ab- 
sorbed in his symposium of ministers’ conversions. 

“Most of them were under twenty -one — many be- 
tween ten and seventeen. ’ ’ 

Fearing that he would ask her in his straightfor- 
ward way if she had made her ‘ ‘ decision ’ ’ yet, she 
changed the conversation w T ith uncourteous and unkind 
abruptness by asking if he enjoyed his vacation. 

His eyes clouded, then brightened, as they met hers ; 
he replied that he had made it a working vacation. 
He had preached week -nights and Sundays among the 
islands. “ Giving poorer preachers a vacation.” 

‘ ‘ I wish you would tell me how old each of them 
was,” said Elizabeth, twisting his sleeve with urgent 
fingers. “I like to know when their tempests were 
over. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Come to my study some time, and I will read all 
the letters to you. How soon would you like your 
tempests to be over ? ’ ’ 

“Now; to-day. This minute,” she said promptly. 

‘ 4 Then shall we kneel and ask Christ to still the 
tempest as he stilled the sea ? ’ ’ 

The child knelt with her head on the arm of his 
chair ; he had once told her that story and she loved 
it ; Isabel knelt with an ache at her heart. She could 
not do anything with herself ; what could she do with 
the child ? Her ‘ ‘ decision ’ ’ was farther away than 


24 


GOLDENKOD FARM 


ever ; she had promised him that she would decide — 
some day. 

When he took her hand in parting he said ; “I un- 
derstand something of your difficulties with our little 
charge. To quote from the symposium : ‘ To begin 
early and keep at it is the way in my judgment to get 
Scripture-searching, praying, giving, working, always- 
under-the-yoke Christians.’ ” 

“ I am not that myself,” she replied with keen sen- 
sitiveness ; ‘ ‘ how can I do it for any one else ? ’ ’ 

“ By beginning with yourself first,” he said. 

“ But seven is so young — she is such a baby.” 

“ The brain reaches its maximum size about the end 
of the seventh year, the wise men say. But it is not 
only her brain ; her heart is vehement in its loving.” 

Hand in hand Elizabeth and her guardian went to 
the door together. She stood on the upper step of the 
stone flight while he crossed the street to the Main- 
warings’. 

Mary Mainwaring had not walked one step for ten 
years ; she was hopeful for herself, and her family was 
hopeful for her. 

She appeared to them all like a girl of fifteen, with 
her round, pretty face ; to her pastor she was still a 
dear child of his flock. To-day was her thirty-second 
birthday. 

Her mother had written him a note, saying that it 
was her “dear invalid’s birthday,” and that nothing 
would make her so happy as an hour with her pastor. 
She called his visits her 4 4 Sabbath hour . 9 9 


25 


THE “CHILD OF MANY PRAYERS ” 

“ Give my love to Miss Mary,” Elizabeth shouted. 

Then she went back to the library window to watch 
the happy children who were allowed to play in the 
street. 

Twice seven years afterward, when she was twenty - 
one, she believed that God, the father in this household 
of sisters, had given her a friend in flesh and blood be- 
cause he thought about her and wanted to. She was 
glad the friend was Mark Benson. 

She was not sure that her guardians were glad, or 
that any one was glad besides Mark and herself. She 
hoped God was glad. If he were not, would he not 
tell her so ? W ould he have given him to her if he 
had not been glad ? 

Isabel told her that as usual she had known what she 
wanted, but that was not all there was to know ; what 
some one else wanted might be prudent to consider. 

Not one of her sisters congratulated her ; Mr. Ham- 
ilton looked very grave, and said it would have done 
no harm to wait until Mark Benson’s health was bet- 
ter — his winter in the South had not done for him what 
his friends had hoped ; and Mr. Mainwaring said merely 
that he was his trusted clerk and bound to rise. 

‘ ‘ We are proud of you, Elizabeth, and we want you 
to have the best,” said he, the father of three girls 
he had never given in marriage. 

Mark Benson’s home with father, mother, brothers, 
sister, and the baby in it, making it a place to be de- 
sired in Elizabeth’s eyes, was broken up before the boy 


26 


GOLDENROD FARM 


was thirteen ; the father and mother died within three 
days of each other, the children were taken into the 
families of different relatives. Mark, the eldest, v T as 
adopted by an uncle, another Mark Benson, living in 
Danfortli street, a few T blocks from Elizabeth’s home. 

Mark’s uncle was an invalid, never of his own will 
able to lift his head from his pillow 7 , having injured his 
spine by a fall over the rocks near the lighthouse at 
Cape Elizabeth. To his uncle the boy owed the culti- 
vation of his literary tastes, to whom he read aloud 
night and day. 

4 ‘ Mark, I would like you to do what I have never 
been able to do,” he said one midnight wiiile Mark 
was in vain seeking to read him to sleep. 

“ I never could live a brave life like yours, Uncle 
Mark,” the young man replied. “I feel in myself a 
brave spirit ; but it oozes out when the flesh is 
touched.” 

The afternoon that she was three times seven Mark 
Benson brought Elizabeth a copy of “ Lady Geraldine’s 
Courtship. ’ ’ They read it together that afternoon, and 
then he told her that he loved her as the poet loved 
the lady. 

‘ ‘ And you are as far away from me, ’ ’ he said ; ‘ 4 you 
in your luxury, and I a clerk on a small salary.” 

Their engagement was never “announced.” Isabel 
begged her sister to w T ait one year and ‘ ‘ see what w r ould 
come of such a crazy thing, ’ ’ and to please her because 
she loved her, Elizabeth promised. 


27 


THE “ CHILD OF MANY PRAYERS ” 

Between the two who had chosen each other their 
engagement was the “ world -without -end ” covenant 
that some one has called marriage. 

“A man in the house gives a backbone to it,” 
Elizabeth remarked one evening after Mark Benson 
and Julius Wentworth had said good -night. 

It depends upon how much backbone the man has,” 
replied Cynthia ; “ it does not take much to read to 
one’s uncle, and sit on a high stool making figures.” 

“ Not quite so much as to play the violin,” retorted 
Elizabeth. 

“ But Julius is studying hard ; he has a fine head 
for business, Mr. Main waring told him. And every 
one knows what Mr. Lefierts thinks of him.” 

“ I hope he has a fine head for business,” said Eliza- 
beth ; ‘ ‘ there ought to be something under all that 
hair.” 

“ Girls, stop quarreling,” commanded the eldest sis- 
ter, “ the boys are both well enough in their places.” 

“ And their places are not in this house,” said Jes- 
sica with a light laugh. Jessica’s widowhood sat 
lightly upon her ; she was still one of the “ girls.” 

On the afternoon in October that, by the day of 
the week, was the first anniversary of their engagement, 
Mark left the office early and strolled into the library, 
as he often did in the late afternoon. 

Elizabeth was embroidering silk pansies on a white 
centerpiece for Mary Mainwaring. 

“ What will you do next? Your fingers are always 
making poetry and painting out of colored silks.” 


28 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ The prettiest something for Mr. Hamilton’s 
study.” 

“ And next ? ” 

“ Something for that blessed uncle of yours.” 

“ He has some one to do pretty things for him. I 
believe that he in his pain and deprivation is happier 
than many men with wife and children. How devoted 
Miss Main waring is. Few wives are like her.” 

4 ‘ That is his compensation. What will you have 
for the compensation of me, I wonder ? ’ 9 

“ The happiest thing for you would be for me to 
tumble over the rocks and stay there.” 

“ A year to-day. Now we need not keep our secret 
any longer, ’ 9 she said in her happy voice. ‘ ‘ Shall we 
have an engagement party ? ’ ’ 

“Wait a little longer. I am not willing yet. It 
was wise in your sister Isabel. She is a wise woman. 

I was the fool. My Uncle Mark told me I would 

but, don’t look like that. I am in one of my moods 
to-day. Let us go out into the melancholy days. 
Wouldn’t you like to make a bonfire with me? 

“ Boughs are daily rifled 
By the gusty thieves ; 

And the book of nature, 

Gettetli short of leaves.” 

“Wouldn’t it be fun? I never made a bonfire. 
And I always wanted to.” 

“That is what giving up means: a bonfire of the 
dreams of youth.” 


29 


THE “ CHILD OF MANY PRAYERS 

“ Don’t be tragic. You can be poetic without 
tragedy. ’ ’ 

She laid her work aside and asked w T hat he would 
like to do to celebrate their first anniversary. How 
old they would be when they came to the twenty -fifth ! 
He would be famous and she 

“Why, yes,” she assented, when he asked her if a 
sunset walk would be pleasant. She looked proudly at 
her pansies and gave the yellow one a loving touch. 

“ Let us follow Spring Street then out to the sun- 
set,” she said. 

He shivered as he remembered that Spring Street 
would lead them to a cemetery ; but the sunset was 
over it and Elizabeth would think only of the sunset ; 
why was he so constructed that he would see only the 
cemetery ? 

“ It makes me think,” the girl ran on in her light, 
pretty w T ay (and something always made Elizabeth 
think) ‘ ‘ that we can follow a lighted way toward the 
light, be it sunrise or sunset, and people prate so 
drearily about through darkness into light. The light 
cannot amount to much if it does not brighten the path 
you take toward it.” 

“ Which only proves” (Mark Benson was always 
proving something) “that there are more ways than 
one. In my own experience I have never come to any 
lighted place except through the way of long darkness. 
I cried in agony for six weeks for the forgiveness of my 
sin before I could believe that I was forgiven. I be- 
lieve I understand the long darkness of Cowper.” 


30 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ Poor boy/’ said the girl tenderly. “ But you are 
in the light now.” 

He closed the street door and they went down the 
broad stone steps together, down the green terrace to 
the street. He swung open the low iron gate and they 
turned toward the sunset. 

‘ ‘ I am glad there are more ways than one, ’ ’ she 
said in her peculiarly joyous voice, “for now I need 
not take some one’s dark way. It would kill me not 
to walk in the light.” 

“The beaten way is the most traveled,” he said 
argumentatively . 

“ But the beaten way may not be the best,” she re- 
plied, with her usual touch of willfulness. 

“So, it is the best way you are after, ’ ’ he laughed ; 
“ may you get it. ” 

‘ ‘ The best for me, ’ ’ she answered, with light re- * 
buke. “Is it not the best you are after? ” with eyes 
of gravest appeal. 

His eyes were restless and glittering this afternoon ; 
this expression was not new to the girl watching them, 
but this afternoon the glitter gave her an unpleasant 
sensation. 

“No,” he said gloomily, in answer to her question ; 

‘ ‘ the best eludes me, the best has been snatched out of 
my hand.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” she asked, frightened more 
by his eyes than by his words, for this word was no new 
thing. “ Have you lost your position? ” 

“ Not yet, but I shall.” 


THE “ CHILD OF MANY PRAYERS ” 31 

“ Oh, well, you can get another,” she said, with her 
woman’s belief in his ability. 

44 Yes, I can get another,” he replied reassuringly ; 
4 ‘don’t be anxious, little girl. You are all right; 
nothing shall happen to you.” 

“Nothing ever did. Nothing ever has — but you. 
I don’t know what could happen to me. Although 
Isabel does say we may lose our money and all five of 
us have to work for our bread and butter some day. 
But I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she 
said, with shy tenderness and a touch upon his arm. 

44 Nothing shall, this afternoon. Let us go on to the 
cemetery,” he said, with a laugh. 

44 That’s horrid to say. I never think of the ceme- 
tery except as something picturesque. The sky, the 
water, the green beyond, is all I ever see ; I will not go 
that way. Let us walk toward the north, or south ; 
anywhere but there. You are too horrid this after- 
noon. If you look at me so I’ll go back and finish the 
pansies on my centerpiece ; I don’t like you to-day, 
Mark,” she said, with eyes that contradicted her lips. 

“I wish you didn’t. I wish you never had,” ho 
answered, with emphasis. 

44 I cannot say that to you,” she said, with sweetest 
sincerity. 4 4 Do you want your ring back ? ’ ’ lifting the 
hand on which flashed in the sunlight the ring for 
which she had thanked God. 

44 No ; I want you to wear that ring as long as you 

will. Elizabeth, we have known each other When 

did we not know each other ? ’ ’ 


32 


GOLDENROD FARM 


‘ ‘ A dreadfully long time, ’ ’ she said laughingly, as 
they walked on toward the sunset ; “ quite Jacob and 
Rachel. Was it Rachel or Rebecca? ” 

‘‘I don’t know,” he answered absently. “You 
are twenty -two ; I am twenty-five.” 

“ Old folks,” she jested, “ gray and decrepit.” 

“ It takes a long time to live the allotted three-score 
and ten years.” 

4 ‘ Exactly seventy years, ’ ’ she replied, with pretty 
seriousness. 

‘ ‘ I wish we were through with them all. ’ ’ 

“ Oh, I don’t. Just think of all we shall do, the 
places we shall see, the books we shall read, the poems 
you will write ; you remember you have promised to 
climb the Alps with me and sail around the world. 
Who ever before wished to be old ? ” 

“ What is a promise ? A thing to be broken ? ” 

“ Mark Benson ! I will go home. What do you 
mean ? Have I hurt you in any way ? ’ ’ she asked. 
“ Don’t let us have another quarrel.” 

“You hurt me always. You hurt me by being your 
beautiful self.” 

“Oh, I can be ugly and disagreeable in a minute. 
If you do not promise to talk nonsense to me, I will 
turn around and leave you to your miserable fate and 
the cemetery.” 

“ To go to the cemetery alone. That is what I am 
planning to do. Now, Betsey, don’t have a temper. 
I’ll buy you a box of candy and a magazine, and we’ll 
take a walk another way.” 


33 


THE u CHILD OF MANY PKAYERS” 

“ And you will never talk like this again,” she 
pleaded earnestly ; “you give me the creeps, Mark.” 

“ Dear,” he said, and it was all he said. 

Years and years, the one word and the tenderness 
that could never be expressed stayed with Elizabeth. 

She told him sometimes that she loved him because 
he had red hair, and because his voice would allure her 
around the world, and because — and then she looked 
at him, and he wished she would never look at him 
again. When she said “good-bye,” that afternoon 
within the gate, she held his hand as she was not apt 
to do, and spoke words that said themselves over and 
over to him in all the days and nights that followed : 

il God bless you, 

With blessings beyond hope or thought, 

With blessings which no words can tell.” 

It was her farewell, her long farewell ; he was glad 
that she did not know it. 

But once more, to-morrow, he would see her, and 
then like an evil thing, he would flee out of her 
life. 

No one but herself had read his unpublished volume 
of poems ; no one but herself and his uncle un- 
derstood and fully appreciated Mark Benson. “ Poor 
Mark Benson,” people said sometimes, because of his 
cough and hollow chest, and his moods of silence and 
reserve ; he was rich Mark Benson to Elizabeth Mars- 
ten, because of his heavenly gifts ; to himself he was 

proud Mark Benson, because Elizabeth loved him. 

c 


34 


GOLDENROD FARM 


To her he sat in heavenly places ; he was lifting her to 
sit beside him, to walk beside him in his heavenly 
places. 

He came early Sunday afternoon ; they sang together 
all the hymns they knew and went to evening service. 
He never came again. He did not come for the word 
of good-bye. He wrote to her from St. Augustine that 
he could not live through seeing her for the last time. 
That Sunday night he did not know it was the last 
time ; his uncle had sped him off in hot haste. 

Her four sisters asked Elizabeth no questions ; she 
told them without any questioning that he had left 
Portland for the South. 

Isabel humored her that winter, and Cynthia did not 
make her angry as often as usual ; Martha gave her an 
emerald ring for Christmas, and Jessica went to church 
with her every Sunday evening. 

On Christmas Day Mark Benson died in the South 
with a sudden hemorrhage and heart failure. 

She said to her sisters that the thick letter with the 
strange handwriting which the postman brought was 
from Mark Benson’s physician in St. Augustine, and 
that he was dead. She was willing to say no more. 
She knew that for days she would be watched, and 
everything she did or did not do, would be talked over 
by these girls who were always in council. 

There were four of these girls who were always in 
council ; there were four sisters and the half-sister, 
Elizabeth. When the half-sister was in one of her self- 
rebukeful moods she called herself half a sister. The 


35 


THE “ CHILD OF MANY PRAYERS V 

others remembered their father and mother ; the young- 
est sister remembered neither her mother, who was also 
their mother, nor her father, who was not their father. 
She was an infant of three months when her father 
died, and a small, energetic, self-willed maiden of three 
years when her mother was taken from her, and they 
were left alone. 

‘ ‘ She is ours, mother, she belongs to every one of 
us, ’ ’ comforted Isabel, who was twenty years older than 
her baby sister, the day their mother died, ‘ ‘ and I will 
own her.” 

“A widow with a little girl,” remarked one sym- 
pathetic lady to another as the black -robed, black - 
veiled figure, holding by the hand a child in white with 
black ribbons, passed them in the street. The words 
gave the elder sister a chill. The child’s mother had 
been that — a widow with a little girl. Was her girl- 
hood lived and all over because she was the eldest of 
the five ? W as she like a widow with a child ? But 
she was young — twenty-three ; the mourning garment 
and the child by the hand gave her the appearance of a 
blighted life ; she hastened home to put off the dress 
and robe herself for the evening in the dark green 
somebody admired her in. The somebody, Luke 
Lefferts, the Latin teacher in the high school, did not 
come that night, and she was cross with the child and 
did not kiss her good -night when nurse came to take 
her upstairs. 

Not one of the four girls loved or respected their 


36 


GOLDENROD FARM 


stepfather ; he was a lawyer in ill health, and they 
believed and told each other that he had married their 
mother for her wealth and social position. 

But their mother loved him, and they were devoted 
to their mother ; she was as beautiful as their great- 
grandmother’s portrait, and the dearest and most in- 
dulgent mother in the world. The only difference in 
the attitude of his four stepdaughters toward him was 
in degrees of dislike. 

He took his wife to Europe and came home to die. 
They forgave him then, because their mother loved 
him, and because he died. 

It was said of the five sisters, when the youngest was 
fifteen, that she was the ‘ ‘ ugly duckling ’ ’ and her 
sisters were four of the most beautiful girls in the city 
of Portland. 

A stranger once remarked of the four sisters, that 
they were as alike as four peas in a pod ; Mrs. Main- 
waring, the neighbor across the street, replied that if 
he lived awhile in the same pod he would see differences 
enough — pleasant differences and unpleasant differ- 
ences. 

The house in High Street, with the handsome en- 
trance on Spring Street, was built one hundred years 
and longer before Elizabeth was born into it. Her 
maternal great-grandfather, who built it in the later years 
of his prosperous life, was a shipowner and one of the 
wealthiest men in the small city. The house and fur- 
niture were willed to her five daughters by their 
mother, with the sum of sixty thousand dollars each. 


TPIE “ CHILD OF MANY PRAYERS 


37 


yy 


There was nothing in the handsome old stone house 
that Elizabeth loved so devotedly as the portrait in oil of 
her red-haired great-grandmother ; it was painted when 
she was brought to the city a bride, a girl of seven- 
teen. 

“Some day she will speak to me,” Elizabeth said. 
She was only a country girl, her sisters told her ; to 
Elizabeth she was a princess. 

A princess with laughing eyes, saucy, yet loving 
mouth, and ripples of red hair. Elizabeth wove a 
romance concerning the girl who had lived so long ago 
on one of the islands in Casco Bay, of her home, of her 
mother, her wooing among the pines and rocks, her city 
lover, and the strangeness of coming to a city house. 

The square stone house with its four stories, hand- 
some entrance, and fine lawn, had not been built until 
years and years after her marriage, when her husband 
had become rich in ships the legend ran ; and Elizabeth 
was glad that she had not left her island for money, 
but for love. If her lover had had his portrait painted 
to hang beside his bride’s, it had not been handed down 
from children to grandchildren. For him Elizabeth 
had no thought ; it was the red-haired country girl 
she was in love with ; it was this girl she would like to 
be herself, and to live and love away back a hundred 
years. 

She herself had just escaped the rich, red hair ; 
to her it was not a happy escape, her curly locks would 
grow browner and browner instead of redder and 
redder. 


38 


GOLDENROD FARM 


‘ ‘ Qh, dear great-grandmother ! ’ ’ she said the day 
she was seventeen, standing before the portrait in the 
gallery, ‘ ‘ was your life a long puzzle to you ? Or did 
you guess it out? Or didn’t you care? But I care ; 
I’ve got to care. I’ve got to care or die. And I 
won’t die until I know and do it all.” 

But seventeen was in the past, almost as long ago as 
her great-grandmother’s past, when she read the letter 
from Mark Benson’s friend and physician and had no 
heart to tell the girls about it. 

She kept it crumpled in her hand while she knelt be- 
fore the Lord and begged him not to let her great sor- 
row spoil all her life. 

Mark was dead, but her life was alive, and so strong, 
so ready for action ; she was bustling with thoughts. 
Would He keep her heart from aching too hard, and 
keep her alive a long time, until she had done all 
the things she wanted to do ? She would give him 
tithes of her fortune and of her life ; she would sj^end 
herself in his service. 

Even without Mark she still had her heavenly places. 

She knelt weak and arose strong ; her strength thrilled 
in her veins ; it came with the thought that rushed 
through brain and heart : Did she have to stay alone 
in her heavenly places ? was not the world full of peo- 
ple ? Surely she need not be alone ; she could find some 
one to be at home with ; God could still give her a 
friend, if he wanted to, and ever thought about her need. 

It would not be a heavenly place if she had to walk 
alone, work alone, stay alone. 


39 


THE “ CHILD OF MANY PE AYERS v 

Were not Paul’s words, “ Together in heavenly 
places ’ ’ ? 

If she had to be alone anywhere, she would die of 
just being desolate. She liked the Bible better be- 
cause of that “together.” 


CHAPTER 


THAT GIRL 

Christ be with you to-morrow, 

In pleasure or in sorrow ; 

Christ help you in temptation, 

And every tribulation ; 

Christ strengthen you for duty, 

Give to your spirit beauty, 

And comfort you with gladness 
For every hour of sadness. 

The care of Christ defend you, 

The love of Christ befriend you. 

— Marianna Farnin gham. 

T HAT time in her life when her covenant had been 
broken was a twelvemonth old, and the burden of 
Mark Benson’s life had slipped from her heart uncon- 
sciously. Her life was brightened, she hardly knew 
why ; if his death was a bereavement it was a com- 
forted bereavement. 

That very day she had heard Cynthia say to Martha 
that Elizabeth was heartless and fickle ; she herself did 
not understand whether she was or not ; she had no 
standard in a sorrow like her own, and it was not 
strange, but only natural, that she should care to drive 
to Goldenrod Farm with Julius Wentworth, and that 
they should pick goldenrod together. She had not 
seen the place all summer, having gone to Lake George 
40 


THAT GIKL 


41 


with her sisters. If that was what Cynthia meant she 
did not understand it. And then, was it not natural 
that she should care to see Mary Wentworth, who had 
married her Cousin Howard, in her new home ? 

She stood on the broad upper step of the stone flight 
that led to the iron gate. As in that afternoon, when 
she was a child in white, bidding good-bye to the min- 
ister, she looked across the street to the Mainwaring 
home. She thought of her sunset walk with Mark 
Benson — she often thought of it, but not to be troubled ; 
he was with God. It was her young self that walked 
with him that day ; her older self did not long for his 
companionship. She pictured him often as her boy- 
friend and fellow -student ; she had grown away in the 
long year from her need of him as he walked beside 
her. As she thought of him in the presence of Christ, 
beholding his face and doing his will perfectly, her love 
was purified to the adoration of one who was a saint ; 
he had been taken out of her earthly life, and she was 
not ready yet to walk with him in his heavenly places. 

She did not understand herself. She had expected 
her heart to break, and it had not broken, her life was 
even more joyous than ever before. 

“ She was not hurt deeply/’ Cynthia said to her sis- 
ters. 

Elizabeth would have told you she was not hurt at 
all. She had only learned more of God with whom 
Mark was. In her Bible she had written his initials 
near the words of Christ’s prayer for his disciples : 
“ That they may be with me where I am.” 


42 


GOLDENROD FARM 


44 But she isn’t deep,” Martha replied ; 4 4 she is like 
her father. Nothing goes below the skin. Her trou- 
ble does not even show through. ’ ’ 

After a twelvemonth she had become, as far as they 
could see, as merry and full of plans as ever, and her 
sisters were comforted for her ; they said to each other 
that it was a good thing for them all that Mark Benson 
had dropped out of her life into the land of forgetful- 
ness. Jessica understood. When Elizabeth found 
white flowers in her chamber on her desk, under his 
photograph, she knew it was the thought of the sister 
whose husband was buried in another land. 

The girl who had been compelled to break her cov- 
enant never said to her sisters that she had released 
Mark Benson at his own expressed and vehement de- 
sire ; that it was his desire because the most noted 
specialist in the country in nervous diseases had assured 
him that he was threatened with insanity, his only 
safety was in rest from brain labor, entire change of 
scene, and to keep himself from emotion as much as 
possible ; with these precautions he might jog along to 
old age ; as for marriage, a man would be a brute to 
drag a woman 

The truth was too terrible to be put into spoken 
words ; no words in all the world’s history had ever 
been framed to meet her demand ; and then if she 
could speak, how could she bear Isabel’s look of horror, 
Cynthia’s dry, 44 A happy release for you,” Martha’s 
half-uttered, 44 1 always thought so,” and hardest of 
all, Jessica’s look and touch of sympathy? Not even 


THAT GIRL 


43 


to her pastor and dear guardian could she speak all 
the terror of the truth. Cynthia had always been 
strongest in her opposition to her engagement ; she had 
said that Mark was queer and unstable, never to be de- 
pended upon, unlike other people, and full of freaks. 

Cynthia was always strongest in her opposition to any 
of her projects that were not approved in the home 
council. Cynthia openly declared that she herself 
would make 4 ‘ a splendid marriage or none ’ ’ ; what 
was the good of beauty, money, and position, unless one 
did something brilliant with one’s self? Cynthia and 
herself were as different as though born in different 
worlds. How could she herself not believe in Mark 
when he was her ideal and her darling, when he told 
her all his heart, and said she was his inspiration ? If 
he was melancholy and full of moods, was not that 
his poetic temperament? Even his melancholy was 
sweet-tempered and thoughtful for her. The broken 
engagement hastened the development of heart and lung 
trouble. She learned from his physician in the letter 
written at Mark’s request, that he never “lost his 
mind,” and that “Is that you, Betsey?” were the 
last words upon his lips. 

“ Is that you, Betsey?” he would say again, when 
he greeted her in the city which had no street leading 
to the cemetery. 

The broken engagement had been a break indeed to 
both of them. 

To her, it fell in one stroke. 

That last Sunday evening, in the hour after church, 


44 


GOLDENKOD FARM 


in the frenzy of his despair he had hurled the truth at 
her like a thunderbolt from God. 

‘ ‘ It is true, ’ ’ he said savagely ; ‘ ‘ now make the 
most of it!” 

“ I can bear the truth,” she said. “ I always can.” 
She did bear it. He died. 

This Saturday afternoon, after her brave year that 
she did not know was brave, as she stood on the upper 
stone step before the open door, Isabel called from the 
library, ” Where are you going, Elizabeth? ” 

Isabel was never happy unless she knew she could 
think of her youngest sister in some pleasant place. 
She knew that Elizabeth was brave. 

“ Anywhere — somewhere — -just to be out. To see 
the Main waring girls I think.” 

Somehow the “ Mainwaring girls ” and their mother 
helped Elizabeth to see more clearly when life was all 
in a tangle ; it was nothing they ever did or said, for 
they were simple folk and not given to speaking of them- 
selves, it was • simply their outlook upon life ; they 
stood on a height and looked off, they breathed more 
freely up there, they were not hampered and hindered 
by the cares and perplexities of the workers and think- 
ers lower down where she stood. 

‘ ‘ Mrs. Mainwaring is a mother with three daughters, ’ ’ 
Elizabeth would have replied if questioned concerning 
Mrs. Mainwaring. All Elizabeth’s life she had been 
to her an old mother with three old daughters. The 
three girls had never left home except for an occa- 
sional visit, and then not each alone, but as a pair ; 


THAT GIRL 


45 


they obeyed their mother as readily and cheerfully as 
if they were still small children. 

‘ ‘ I was brought up in an English rectory and my 
daughters are like me,” she said to Elizabeth. 

This afternoon that Elizabeth crossed the street to 
4 ‘ see the Main waring girls ’ ’ Mary, the youngest, w r as 
forty-nine, Louise was five years her senior, and 
Miranda was already an old lady, having added two 
years to her three score. Mary was quite a girl in 
contrast to her sisters ; they were willing to look old 
and be old, but the youngest, the darling, must never 
change ; they did not like changes. They had each 
had a love story, perhaps it would be more exact to say 
they each had a love story ; they were the kind of 
women to keep everything they ever had. 

Miranda’s story was forty years old : her lover died 
after a brief illness, upon her twenty-second birthday, 
the day set for her marriage ; during her two score be- 
reaved years she had worn her first mourning, dull 
black with a dull white collar and cuffs ; on her finger 
still shone the diamond that held its spark of light as 
on the day he placed it there ; the wedding ring had 
never been lifted from its blue satin -lined box since he 
laid the box in her hand. Her story was ended — to 
begin again in a new way in a new world. 

The story of the maiden of fifty-four was not ended 
yet ; it never would end as long as they both lived. 
When she was twenty-seven and her lover three years 
older, they were away together for a summer day’s 
outing on Cape Elizabeth ; they sat awhile on the rocks 


46 


GOLDENROD FARM 


at the foot of the lighthouse, and then she proposed a 
scramble on the rocks. In attempting to save her from 
slipping as she started with a laugh and a venturesome 
step, he fell and injured his spine ; from that day he 
had not by himself lifted his head from his pillow. 

When his father died ten years afterward, he walled 
to his son, the elder Mark Benson, the room in which 
he lay, the airiest and handsomest room in the house, 
on the first floor, with income sufficient to pay his nurse 
and supply his few wants. 

His home was on Danforth Street, but five blocks 
from the house where Louise Mainwaring was born and 
had lived all her life. Every morning and every after- 
noon, rain or shine, she went up the high steps without 
ringing, and opened, after a touch of her fingers on the 
panel, the door at the right of the hall ; he was always 
there, always waiting, her chair was always at his 
bedside ; on the table the flowers and books they both 
loved. The hour together was often a silent hour. 

Perhaps Mary’s story was the saddest of the three 
maiden sisters ; the man she loved had never loved her, 
indeed had never for one moment suspected that she 
had a thought toward him beyond friendship. He was 
a bachelor, and her pastor, counselor, friend, as he 
desired to be to every man, woman, and child in his 
small parish. Pie was a good pastor ; people said he 
was not much of a preacher — he seemed not to know 
anything outside the Bible. She had loved him so long 
that she forgot that she loved him more deeply (or 
differently) than any other woman in the church. He 


THAT GIRL 


47 


Was eight years her senior, an old man to her while she 
to him was still young ; she wished she might be 
allowed to grow old ; her one dream was to be old like 
him and busy in his work with him ; if only they 
might grow old together. No picture in the world was 
so beautiful to her as the living picture she often saw — 
gray -haired husband and gray -haired wife. 

Mary was the prettiest sister — this may have been the 
reason why her mother and sisters would not allow her 
to grow up — slight as a girl, erect, graceful, with 
cheeks like a faded wild rose which flushed into the 
glow of youth with every sudden emotion, waves of 
brown hair that with scarcely a suggestion of silver 
fell low over her forehead and hung in curls on her 
neck, eyebrows as brown as her hair arched over bluest 
eyes, with lashes long and dark, with fresh lips and 
teeth prettier than many a girl’s — how could she be 
allowed to grow old ? 

In this as in everything else she obeyed her mother. 

One secret of her girlishness was her shut -away life. 
She was shut away from every influence that could hurt 
or spoil ; for thirty years, from fifteen to forty -five, she 
had been not strong ; her home was her world. She 
was an invalid that day on which the new minister 
called and sat fascinated by her couch through the long 
summer afternoon. She was not an invalid at forty- 
nine ; her girlhood had come back to her, if indeed, it 
had ever left her. 

If the young people of the church would have 
recognized her as one of themselves, her mother and 


48 


GOLDENROD FARM 


sisters would have been glad for her to become a girl 
again, to become the girl she had never been. Still, 
her girlhood was not a lost time ; she stayed a girl all 
her life. 

Her mother told her she was too reserved with the 
girls of the neighborhood ; her sisters believed she was 
too proud. She was the friend, the bosom friend of 
Elizabeth Marsten ; they had been girls together since 
Elizabeth w T as thirteen. Her girl friend had not been 
told Mary Mainwaring’s secret ; her Father in heaven 
had kept that which she had committed to his care ; 
he alone kept her secret with her ; he had kept them 
both young, herself and her secret ; how could anybody 
or anything grow old in such keeping ? 

“ I wish I knew a happy love-story,’’ said Elizabeth 
suddenly. 

The two, Mary Mainwaring and Elizabeth, had been 
busy over their needlework for an hour, speaking or not 
speaking as was the mood of each, when Elizabeth 
broke out with her exclamation. 

“Why, don’t you?” asked Mary in bewilderment 
(the world was still a place of bewilderment to her). 
“ I know ever so many. Almost every one I know. 
And look at Louise and Mark.” 

“ If that is what you call happy — it is a sacrifice, a 
happy sacrifice. They have only each other ; but they 
have so little to enrich each other’s lives. My ideal is 
— but nobody seems to attain ideals. Jessica is happy 
in the memory of her happiness ; and Cynthia isn’t 
happy. If Isabel ever had a time of ideals, it must 


THAT GIRL 


49 

have been before I was born, and Martha — I could no 
more think of her with a story than Mr. Hamilton. 
Life must have something else for some of us. If lov- 
ing were all and God withheld it from us, he would not 
be, what I know him to be, as just as he is merciful. 
Loving is very wide — as wide as the world. And the 
happy love-story is loving all the world, as God does. 
But, who can ? Somehow the quality of it gets thinned 
out by its being spread about in such large quantities. 
If I had but one sister I should breathe her very 
breath, I know I should. Now — well, I am not very 
loving/’ and Elizabeth sighed. 

“ You know what Mr. Hamilton said on Sunday, 
‘ Ye are Christ’s,’ ” her friend remarked. 

“ Yes, I remember.” 

“ Aren’t you satisfied, then?” was the timid ques- 
tion. 

“No, I am not,” was the bold and blunt reply. 
“ I know he is. He said he was better acquainted 
with the man Jesus Christ than with any friend he ever 
had. But I am not a preacher or a prophet. When I 
study the Bible I like the human things best. If the 
human were left out the book would not be much to 
me.” 

“ It would not be the Bible then. Christ is human. 
Mr. Hamilton said, the man Christ Jesus. Christ is 
all, and in all.” 

“ In all ? That’s what I mean exactly. Now, if he 
is in all things, why can’t I find things as good as I 
want them to be ? ” she questioned willfully. 

D 


50 


GOLDENROD FARM 


‘ ‘ People, you mean ? ’ ’ 

“ Yes ; people and everything. ’ ’ 

“ Christ is not in people ; they will not receive him. 
You do find what you want in the measure in which 
he is in them.” 

“ I find what I w T ant — some things — in Mr. Hamil- 
ton. But he is away off above me; he is so old that he 
has left off caring for what is my very life. I wish I 
could find somebody young and good. Do you suppose 
people have to be old to be good and noble and not fail 
you ? 5 5 Mark had not failed her ; would Miss Mary 
think that? She would like to bite her impetuous 
tongue. 

‘ ‘ I suppose, ’ ’ hesitated Mary, ‘ ‘ that the Christian 
life is a growth, and growth takes time.” 

“ And in time one grows old,” Elizabeth said laugh- 
ingly. “ ‘ O Plato, thou reasonest well.’ ” 

‘ ‘ Ask Mr. Hamilton. ’ ’ 

“ Oh, I can’t ask him everything,” replied Eliza- 
beth with an impatient fling of her head. “Would 
you ? ’ ’ 

“ No, I wouldn’t like to,” said Mary, with the wild 
rose deep in her cheeks. 

4 ‘ He is not a woman ; he would answer me like a man. 
I want to find a prophet — ess, a Deborah under a palm 
tree, a woman who knows all about waywardness and 
willfulness, and the things you can’t speak of, you are 
so ashamed ; a woman who knows what you mean with 
half a sentence ; a woman who did all my naughty 
things when she was a girl. I would be ashamed to 


THAT GIRL 


51 


be a woman if I could not answer all a girl’s ques- 
tions. ’ ’ 

“ I cannot,” replied tlie woman of forty -nine. 

“ Oh, you are a darling and do say beautiful things 
to me. But you have never roughed it. ’ ’ 

“Roughed it,” repeated Mary, astonished. 

“In a figurative way,” explained Elizabeth. “ Had 
rough experiences.” 

“ Why, have you ? ” 

“ Yes ; I am made of them. A maid of rough ex- 
periences,” she said laughingly. 

“ You look like it ! ” exclaimed Mary. “ You are 
made of every beautiful thing that money can buy. ’ ’ 

“Money!” was the scornful retort. “What has 
money done for me ? Shar Burbank is a great deal pret- 
tier in white muslin and white roses than I am in 
white satin and pearls. She reads books deeper than 
I ever look into. And she sews shoes in a shoe shop.” 

“Well?” said Mary, with a touch of something 
that Elizabeth did not understand. 

“ Oh, nothing. Only this : she is poor and I am 
rich — if you call it rich.” 

“ What do you expect your prophetess to tell you ? ” 
Mary Main waring’ s sheltered life held few unanswered 
questions. She had read her Bible, listened to her 
pastor, and done cheerfully everything her mother and 
sisters had thought right for her to do. 

Elizabeth continued : ‘ 4 She will know and she will 
tell me. Her own life will tell her what to say to 
another girl. Shar is in search of her also. Shar and 


52 


GOLDENROD FARM 


I tell our questions to each other. I think we want to 
know what life is.” 

“ A modest request,” said the woman, as she smiled, 
who knew what life was within her own four walls. 

“ You will do something when your time comes, and 
surprise yourself. I believe everybody does, every- 
body with conscience, and brain, and snap. Every- 
body’s time has to come. Cynthia says her time has 
come to go to Europe. Jessica’s English friends — why 
they are yours too — keep writing and writing for her 
to come and bring all her sisters. They have been 
making money like vulgar Americans, and making 
some old land beautiful. Guy Main waring is fixing up 
an old place, and Jessica is crazy to go and take us all. 
I am the only one that isn’t willing ; Cynthia has been 
so blue and horrid I am glad for her sake.” 

“Do you see much of Julius Wentworth now-a- 
days ? ’ ’ inquired Mary irrelevantly, congratulating her- 
self upon putting the question with great delicacy and 
caution. 

“ There isn’t much of him to see,” replied Elizabeth 
brusquely. 

“ Well, then, what little there is. He is taller than 
Cynthia. ’ ’ 

“Cynthia is shorter than I am. What reminded 
you of him? He isn’t going to Europe, and has noth- 
ing to do with the English Mainwarings. ’ ’ 

“I see him often. I sit at this window a great deal. 
Does Cynthia often go out with him ? ’ ’ 

“ Often? Once in a while. They were at the ob- 


THAT GIRL 


53 


servatory one afternoon watching for the 4 ‘ Mary 
Hamilton”; she was over-due. We have money in 
her, you know.” 

“ Father was anxious at that time. I am so sorry 
Julius gave up the law. He is always giving up some- 
thing. I suppose he would rather polish his violin than 
do anything else.” 

4 ‘ Mary Main waring, I never heard you say a sharp 
word about any one before.” 

“I hope I never did. Father is trying to make a 
man of him for his mother’s sake. He has raised his 
salary and given him a confidential position.” 

“ Cynthia was very proud when she told us that. 
He is her boy.” 

The wild rose was deep in Mary Main waring’ s cheek 
this afternoon ; her house dress was a tea gown of dark 
red. Elizabeth told her she was a darling and a 
beauty, and when she was as old she hoped she would 
be half as sweet. 

“ There is Mr. Hamilton,” was Mary’s only reply, 
in a constrained voice ; “I think he is coming here. 
He stopped and looked up at your windows ” 

“I hope he is. A thing that can never happen to 
me is that he might be my father. But he’s always 
been next best. He hasn’t kissed me since the day I 
was fifteen — he said he drew the line at fifteen.” 

With the joy of her childhood she hastened to the 
door to greet him, and she would have stood at his side 
but that her childish days and doings were over. 

“ Ah, my dear ! ” he said in his kindly way. 


54 


GOLDENROD FARM 


Mary’s flow of words seemed to have deserted her 
this afternoon ; she sat upright in the high -backed 
chair, her curls touching the carved mahogany, her 
pretty fingers interlocked, watching the two, the minis- 
ter and his young parishioner, as they talked. Eliza- 
beth was as playful and frisky as a kitten, and the 
minister unbent and relaxed and smiled, then laughed 
as Mary Main waring in all her years of admiration and 
reverence had never witnessed. This girl had the same 
dash and daring with him that she had with every one 
else. The older maiden moved restlessly in her chair, 
brushing her curls back with a nervous hand. Would 
the hour be lost to her ? would she miss the spiritual 
communion that her spirit blossomed in? would he 
leave her no word to feed on until such time as he 
chanced to come again ? 

This young thing could laugh and chat with Julius 
Wentworth and a dozen others, but this grave and 
spiritual man was all she had. How unfortunate that 
he should come to-day! How t unfortunate that Eliza- 
beth should show to him her naughtiest self! 

‘ ‘ Are you so interested in your native city ? ” he 
w T as asking, when the silent listener came out of her 
questioning, half-indignant revery. 

“ I am beginning to be,” was the frank reply. “ I 
believe I have been living up in the air for years, but 
now I am alighting upon the streets of Portland and 
gazing about as if I were a foreigner. It will be real 
fun to be a foreigner in my native city ; I shall learn so 
much about it.” 


THAT GIRL 


55 


Delighted to find a fresh young face and a fresh 
young mind to listen, not only with patience but 
enthusiasm, Mr. Hamilton forgot the red rose in the 
high -backed chair, who was paling to a faded rose as 
she watched and listened. 

“ I suppose you know that the first squatter came 
looking about to find a place for the sole of his foot 
only twelve years after the landing of the Mayflower. ’ ’ 

“ Oh, I didn’t. Can any one claim such ancient 
history as that ? I’d like to find a place to settle down 
somewhere on this green earth and start something new. 
Everything we do at our house is so old ; all Martha’s 
parties, and Isabel’s drives, and Jessica’s travels (she 
always goes to the same places), and Cynthia — she 
always has somebody new to be in a perplexity about ; 
her worries are the family joke. I want to be a squat- 
ter and squat. ’ ’ 

Mr. Hamilton laughed like a boy. Mary wondered 
how she could say “ squat ” in his exalted presence. 

“On this neck of land where a squatter squatted, 
there were forty families in 1675 who had your ambi- 
tion. They came for something and found something.’’ 

‘ ‘ Indians and wild beasts ? ’ ’ timidly suggested 
Mary. 

‘ ‘ They lived in peace with the Indians for half a 
century. The peace settlement was destroyed when 
King Philip avenged the wrongs of his people. The 
settlement was destroyed and the people fled into a 
deeper wilderness. In three or four years they thought 
it safe and wise to return to their homes.” 


56 


GOLDENROD FARM 


‘ ‘ If there was enough left to call home, ’ 9 said 
Elizabeth. “Spring Street, High Street, Danforth 
Street, must have been dense woods. Think of it Miss 
Mary ! ’ ’ 

Miss Mary nodded a pleased assent ; the pastor gave 
her an encouraging look. She knew that she was not 
wholly forgotten while he looked at the girl who was 
all beauty and life and merriment. 

“ French Huguenots arrived about this time ” 

“ Poor fugitives from sunny France ! But the wil- 
derness itself must have been enticing after the horrors 
they had gone through. Did they find a preacher in 
this wilderness ? ’ 9 

‘ ‘ They did indeed, ” and the modern preacher’s face 
grew bright with the thought of the preacher in the 
wilderness. “In 1727 Thomas Smith began a ministry 
that ended only after sixty years of most faithful and 
arduous labor. He stayed with this people through a 
long and hard pastorate. To me his is one of the most 
inspiring lives on record. He had the spirit of the 
first apostle to the Gentiles. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I hope you will stay as long, ’ ’ murmured Mary. 

“ I have stayed many of them,’’ he replied, with his 
affectionate eyes resting a moment upon her, ‘ 4 and 
Parson Smith has helped every hour of the day and 
night. ’ ’ 

“ His mantle fell on you,” said Mary, with her soft 
murmur. Elizabeth’s pet name for Mary Mainwaring 
was “ Pussy she said her footfall, the touch of her 
hand, and her purring noises reminded her of a kitten. 


THAT GIRL 


57 


“His diary recorded,” Mr. Hamilton continued, 
4 4 the most spiritual and stirring, as well as the most 
trifling events ; he has been an inspiration to service. 
I live in the past with him and contrast my luxurious 
home and idleness with his hut and untiring labor and 
discomforts. He was married three times,” he added 
inconsequently. 

4 4 Oh ! ’ 9 exclaimed Elizabeth demurely, dropping 
her eyes to conceal the flash of fun ; but he caught the 
flash and laughed. 

44 1 have not followed his example, you think. He 
was ahead of me in many things, and decidedly ahead 
of me in this. He is buried in the old graveyard.” 

4 4 1 have seen it , 9 ’ remarked Mary, eager to have 
her share in the conversation, 44 and the oldest stone 
there is dated 1717.” 

44 1 haven’t seen it; I must look it up. I don’t 
know anything about old Portland.” 

44 I’ll take you there, Elizabeth, some afternoon. I 
often visit the place. It is holy ground. Falmouth 
w r as the name of the settlement in the early days ; you 
know as much as that, Elizabeth ? ” 

44 Oh, yes ; I believe I do know that. But I know 
more about Jerusalem and Rome and Cairo than I do 
about my native city, I am ashamed to say.” 

44 The haunts and footpaths began to grow into 
streets. The Indians made peace in 1725, two years 
before Parson Smith began his life-work here. The 
Indians even then were thinning out by death and emi- 
gration to Canada.” 


58 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“A squaw came to our door this morning, ” re- 
marked Mary ; 4 ‘ she looked well fed and was very 
quiet.’ ’ 

4 ‘ I hope they will always stay and be picturesque, ’ ’ 
said Elizabeth. “I don’t like to think my great, 
great, great grand -something bought Goldenrod Farm 
with a barrel of rum.” 

“ When Parson Smith came thirty vessels were rid- 
ing at anchor in the harbor. In 1753 the population 
was over two thousand, and twenty-one of them were 
slaves. I forgot to say that Parson Smith owned a 
slave.” 

“ You are ahead of him in that,” said Elizabeth. 

“ Yes ; I do not even own myself.” • 

“Neither did he, with his three wives,” Elizabeth 
interjected. 

“ Did they raise their own food? ” inquired Mary, 
who was interested in the details of housekeeping, and 
in haste to stop the unseemly reference to Parson 
Smith’s wives. 

“Corn was imported from North Carolina, and po- 
tatoes from Massachusetts. Parson Smith wrote in his 
diary : 4 No wood, little corn, sad complaints every- 
where.” And again he wrote : ‘ The fish have but now 
struck in, a great relief to people almost perishing.’ ” 

4 ‘ I wonder where the Hamiltons were in those days. 
My beautiful great, great-grandmother was Mary Ham- 
ilton. What year was that? ” 

‘ ‘ More than a hundred and forty years ago, in 
1741.” 


THAT GIRL 


59 


“ Before our house was built. But somebody had 
money then. I suppose that in all the hard times some- 
body has money. Shar Burbank has hard times, and I 
have money. I wish nobody had to be poor. ’ ’ 

“What a loss to the world that would be!” ex- 
claimed Mr. Hamilton. “ As if the poor in the world 
were not a part of God’s plan for the world.” 

“I wonder what the ships were doing then,” said 
Elizabeth, ignoring God’s plan for the world. 

“Did they have cargoes to take away then?” in- 
quired Mary Main waring, with an attempt at interest. 
It was her call in spite of this chatterbox. 

“The English navy was supplied with masts from 
our forests. The best pine trees were marked with a 
broad arrow, indicating that they were reserved for 
government use. Twenty years afterward the rich 
people wore cocked hats, wigs, and red cloaks ; even 
small boys wore wigs and buckskin breeches.” 

“Think of them,” said Elizabeth with a laugh; 
‘ ‘ they must have looked like small grandfathers. 
Think of your great -grandfather and mine going to 
school in wigs, Miss Mary. But I forgot ; yours were 
wearing them in England.” 

‘ 4 Then the Revolution came, ’ ’ hazarded Mary, who 
had not forgotten all her history. 

“ The town was destroyed ; only one hundred dwell- 
ings were left standing. After the Revolution fine 
houses began to be built, yours for instance, Elizabeth, 
and that handsome house on Danforth Street. ’ ’ 

“ Yes,” murmured Mary, “ we know that.” 


60 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“Ah, yes. It is my privilege to minister often in 
that house. Of course, you know, Elizabeth, that the 
city is a peninsula jutting into Casco Bay, and from 
three to ten miles down the bay has sixteen islands. 
My own ancestors emigrated to one of these islands. ’ ’ 
“No wonder our own Longfellow wrote of 

“ the beautiful town 
That is seated by the sea ,’ } 

said Elizabeth, “and about the beautiful woods of 
Deering. I must be patriotic and read Longfellow 
again. ‘ The thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts. ’ I love him for writing that. He knew. ’ ’ 

“ To go back to the preacher, who interests me more 
than the modern poet, I was interested to learn that his 
married life extended over a period of sixty -three years 
— fourteen happy years with his first wife, twenty happy 
years with his second, twenty -nine happy years with his 
third wife.” 

‘ ‘ Oh, dear ! ’ ’ groaned Elizabeth, ‘ ‘ what a happy 
Parson Smith he must have been.” 

‘ ‘ Two entries in his diary run thus : 

“ ‘ June 14. Got to Boston. 

“‘ July 10. Got home.’” 

‘ 4 1 suppose he was so glad to get home he could not 
write anything else,” remarked the home-abiding 
Mary. 

“To his three wives,” interposed Elizabeth mis- 
chievously. “ Think of the first apostle to the Gen- 
tiles having three wives.” 


THAT GTKL 


61 


“ From his standpoint even one was not necessary/’ 
replied the bachelor preacher. “ Parson Smith revered 
Paul no doubt ” 

“ And did as he pleased,” interrupted Elizabeth 
with her light laugh. “But perhaps you think that 
Parson Smith did what was right in his ‘ present dis- 
tress ’ ? ” 

Mary Main waring grew pale at Elizabeth’s audacity. 
To speak of marriage at all to him was indelicate in his 
sacred bachelorhood, and in this light way to compare 
Parson Smith with St. Paul— — 

“ We each have our ‘ present distress,’ ” the preacher 
replied, not at all grieved or shocked ; “ Parson Smith 
would deplore mine, but I do not believe Paul would.” 
‘ ‘ I wonder if he was comfortable to live with — Par- 
son Smith. I know Paul was ; he must have been with 
his gentle heart. I wish I could find an old diary, a 
veritable one, not printed, but written, a leaf out of 
somebody’s heart that nobody might ever see but me. 
I want it to be a sad story, because real life is so sad, 
even under a joyful surface.” 

“Why, Elizabeth, I am surprised at you,” ex- 
claimed the surprised Mary. 

“What else did Parson Smith do?” asked Eliza- 
beth, with a laughing look at Mary’s expressive eyes. 
‘ ‘ But perhaps he spent all his time writing in his 
diary.” 

“Not all,” her pastor rebuked, “ if the entries were 
as brief as those I have quoted.” 

“ But they were not,” insisted Elizabeth. 


62 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“For our sakes I am glad they were not/’ he re- 
plied, rising. 44 I have had a very pleasant and profit- 
able interview with you two of my dear flock. Shall 
we have a word of prayer ? ” ,, 

The three knelt ; the prayer was as simple, as 
straightforward, as the man himself. Elizabeth wished 
she had not felt so full of fun and lifted very quiet 
eyes to him when he held her hand in his fatherly fash- 
ion as he bade her good -afternoon. 

“Not a word for me — not a special word for me/’ 
throbbed the heart of poor Mary. 

“Miss Mary,’’ he said, taking her hand and hold- 
ing it in the same fatherly fashion, 4 4 I have been 
thinking about the holy , ones standing on the sea of 
glass. That was transparent. Even the ground under 
their feet was clear enough to be seen through. The 
lives of some saints on earth are so pure as to be trans- 
parent.” 

“Parson Hamilton, may I walk a little way with 
you?” asked Elizabeth. “I haven’t had you all to 
myself for ages.” 

“ I am going up Spring Street to call on Mrs. Went- 
worth,” he said when they stood together in the street. 
“ She wishes to speak of her son Julius to me. I can- 
not gain that young man.” 

“ But, oh, Mr. Hamilton, he has everything else.” 

4 4 If one can have everything and not have the best. 
Kemember, by no mystic alchemy can you get golden 
conduct out of leaden instincts. ’ ’ 

4 4 And his instincts are all leaden ; all but his fine 


THAT GIRL 


63 


musical taste. Law was too sordid for him, he told 
Cynthia. His ambition now is to become a benefactor 
to the world and a shipowner. And his mother — you 
believe in a heritage of prayer. I have so much hope 
for him. Mark Benson believed he would rise above 
his meaner self ; how can he help listening to you ? 
Your church young men are all devoted to you.” 

4 4 But he is not one of them.” 

“ He comes to church very often.” 

“ Yes, he comes.” 

“ Don’t speak so hopelessly,” she pleaded. 

“ I have no hope in him. I hope in God for him.” 
“ Is there some new influence at work in his life? ” 
‘ ‘ Do you know Luke Lefferts ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Why, yes ; they sit behind us in church ; his sis- 
ters do and his mother. I never saw him there. And 
the girls have always known him.” 

“They have had money left them, a considerable 
property. Mr. Lefferts gave up his teaching — he 
taught Latin in the high school, you remember — and 
went to Europe. He is interested in political economy, 
and wrote a paper, recently, for ‘The Forum.’ He is 
an unbeliever, and parades his views upon every possible 
and impossible occasion. He has taken a great interest 
in Julius, especially this last year, has had him in his 
study and lent him books, and Julius has had him at 
his mother’s house. It is about this intimacy, I think, 
that his mother wishes to talk with me.” 

“ Oh, dear ! ” exclaimed Elizabeth, in angry despair. 
“ Why can’t he keep his unbelief to himself? ” 


64 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ He is a man of fine presence and fascinating man- 
ners, the man to captivate a young fellow like Julius. 
Julius was never stable.’ ’ 

“ But you can win him back if anybody can. Can’t 
you have him in your study and lend him books? ” 

‘ ‘ Perhaps I have, ’ ’ with the glimmer of a smile in 
his eyes. 

“ Oh, I know that is not all, or half. I should 
think it would kill his mother and Mary. Sometimes 
I am glad I have no brother.” Then she said ab- 
ruptly, “ I wish you would preach a historical sermon. 
You are so full of old Portland ; you could make it 
alive to us.” 

‘ ‘ And the text ? ’ ’ 

4 ‘ ‘ And he led them the right way and brought them 
to a city to dwell in,’ ” she said instantly. “If that 
isn’t it, it is like it.” 

“ Elizabeth, my dear,” he said gently, “ you remind 
me of a friend of my youth. I never look at you 
without thinking of her. She had mischievous brown 
eyes, and hair just as mischievous ; she was gayety and 
fun itself, with never a serious thought for me or for 
anybody. She was what you are not, what for some 
reason your sisters have failed to make you, a society 
girl. She made fun of the grave young theological 
student that I was then. And after I was ordained and 
preaching she made fun of me still. You are young and 
I may tell you that I loved her ; I loved her furiously 
— I could be furious in those days. I knew I could not 
marry her, that she would never give up her wealth 


THAT GIRL 


65 


and society life for a poor pastor who had nothing but 
his books, and a burning desire to save the souls of men. 
I never told her that I loved her. I think she knew 
it. Her eyes had a strange look when I told her that 
I should never cease to pray for her. But why am I 
telling you this, my dear child ? ’ ’ 

“ Because I want you to,” said Elizabeth. 4 ‘ What 
has become of her ? ’ ’ 

“ I do not know. I lost trace of her. She made a 
brilliant marriage probably. This afternoon you 
looked as she used to look when she was full of fun. 
But I know your heart is in the right place.” 

“I wish I could find her for you,” said Elizabeth, 
forgetting that his story had been lived before she was 
born. 

“You might find a serious grandmother, who 
rebukes her grandchildren for being gay and fond of 
society. Every heart has its secret. I have been 
moved to tell you mine. Do not let it sadden you. It 
is but a memory to me.” 

“ I thank you so much. It is safe with me.” 

“I know that. That is why I told you; and be- 
cause this afternoon you look like that girl.” 

“ But, Mr. Hamilton, — you don’t mind if I say it? 
If she had loved you, wouldn’t you have married 
her ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ It might have been a temptation too hard for flesh 
and blood to resist, ’ ’ he said, in his musing voice. 

4 4 W ould you have had to resist ? ’ ’ she persisted with 
ardor. 

E 


66 


GOLDENROD FARM 


‘ ‘ In my young days when I thought of a wife I 
never forgot the rules God himself made for the mar- 
riages of his priests, and the reasons for certain prohi- 
bitions : ‘ For the crown of the anointing oil of his 
God is upon him/ It was upon me. She was not 
consecrated to God.” 

“ Oh, dear ! ” said Elizabeth ; “ does the anointing 
take you away from everything ? ’ ’ 

“ From everything that God does not love.” 

“But he loved her,” she pleaded, feeling sure that 
he loved the girl who was “ like her.” 

“ But not her lightness and vanity and rebellion 
against him. She had no patience with me because I 
believed I was called to the service of God.” 

Another block, trod in silence, brought them to the 
home of the Wentworths. 

‘ ‘ Kemember, my dear, you are the child of many 
prayers. ’ 9 

He held out his hand ; she held it reverently and 
lovingly. She was glad she was like that girl. 

It was nearly sunset ; she walked on as far as the 
cemetery. 

Did every heart have its own secret history ? She 
was not the only one who had something that only God 
knew about. 

The sun set over the water and the green hills be- 
yond. She did not think of the cemetery. She scarcely 
thought of Mark Benson in heaven. She did not have 
to think of Mark ; she did not have to think of the air 
and sunlight she breathed. 


THAT GIRL 


67 


All the way home she pondered and planned. 

Where should she go if the girls went traveling in 
the spring ? 

Should she stay in the house with dear old Hinchley 
and have people come and go just as she would ? 
Might she have Sliar for the whole summer ? She 
could not tell herself why she did not wish to go trav- 
eling with her sisters ; she only knew her heart w T as 
not in their plans. They called it a whim. One rea- 
son which she could not tell them was that she would 
make an odd number. What did the world do with 
odd numbers ? She had always been one, she had been 
born one. If she had only thought to ask Parson 
Hamilton what happened to odd numbers in the Bible ! 
W ould he understand her ? Would anybody ever ? 

But she could discover that herself. She would 
search and search until she found it. Her motto was 
the pickaxe motto, “ I will find a way, or make. one.” 

The Bible was such a place to find things in. Even 
what the odd number should do with itself. In all her 
Bible study that winter she did not forget that she was 
searching for the odd number. One evening as she sat 
alone in the library she remembered that she might 
find an odd number in Numbers. Where else, indeed, 
should she look ? 

Elizabeth was an original Bible student. With her 
childish spirit, ‘ ‘ I can do it myself, ’ ’ she had bought 
a Bible without references ; it would be a triumph to 
find everything she wanted herself. A concordance 
she did not own. 


68 


GOLDEKROD FARM 


She had resisted every invitation of Mr. Hamilton 
to become a teacher in his Sunday-school, giving always 
the same reason : ‘ ‘ I must know the Bible myself 
first.’ ’ It may be that Bible study without helps was 
not the speediest way of learning, but it was the best 
way for her, if not the speedy way. It was purest de- 
light. A Bible student w T ould have bidden her look 
for “odd,” and “odd number” in the concordance; 
but she asked the advice of no Bible student. She 
waited until she found it herself. 

It was not an idle waiting ; it was an honest, earnest, 
diligent search. While she was looking for the odd 
number she found other precious things. The way to it 
w r as so pleasant that she lingered all along. 

This evening in March that she sat alone in the 
library was one of many that she sat alone ; the girls, 
all four of them, had gone to the theatre. Hinchley, 
the old coachman, grumbled as usual about taking the 
horses out at night, but the girls said he thrived on 
grumbling, and they kept up their society life day and 
evening. 

They had no chaperon ; Miss Gray considered lier- 
at forty -four old enough to chaperon herself and her 
sisters. 

“ Elizabeth, w r hy will you not come with us ? ” Isabel 
urged that evening. 

“I do not wish to , ’ 9 w r as the gentle and decided 
reply. 

“ I wish Parson Hamilton and the Mainwaring girls 
would let you alone. The}" will make a nun of you,” 


THAT GIRL 


69 


said Jessica angrily. “ You are not much less than a 
nun now.” 

“ I think I would not like to be a nun,” said Eliza- 
beth ; “ but I would like to be some kind of a sister.” 

“ I wish you were — some kind,” retorted Cynthia. 

Elizabeth was grieved ; her first hour alone was not 
spent in study. How could she be a better sister when 
not one of them cared for the things she loved best ? 
She loved her Greek Testament and they loved their 
novels ; they gave a glance, and no more, at the 
pictures she painted ; they were not interested in her 
friends ; Isabel was the onlv one of them who attended 
church regularly with her ; Isabel and herself had been 
received into the church five years before. Martha, 
Cynthia, and Jessica went that Sunday, * ‘ for appear- 
ance’s sake,” Martha said. 

And now Isabel was going with them in their way, 
instead of going with her in her way. Was there any 
influence in her life that nobody knew ? Mr. Lefierts 
had given her an elegant copy of ‘ 4 The Light of Asia ’ ’ 
and Parson Hamilton had talked to her about the 
poem and the poet. 

She knelt a long time that evening in the very place 
where she had knelt beside Mr. Hamilton when he 
prayed that Christ would still the tempest in her spirit. 

She arose at peace with herself and her sisters. She 
was the odd one to-night and she was doing an odd 
thing. She began to read the book of Numbers ; she 
read with an absorbing and curious interest : “All that 
were numbered of the Levites which Moses and Aaron 


70 


GOLDENROD FARM 


numbered at the commandment of the Lord, through- 
out their families, all the males from a month old and 
upward, were twenty and two thousand.” 

That was an even number. 

Then she read and learned that the Lord commanded 
Moses to number the first-born of the males of all the 
other tribes, from a month old and upward. He num- 
bered them and found them to be twenty and two thou- 
sand, two hundred, threescore, and thirteen. 

An odd number. But what of that ? 

Ah, but that made a difference, the difference of just 
so many, two hundred and seventy -three. 

Two hundred and seventy -three more than the first- 
born of the Levites. 

The first-born of each of the other tribes was to be 
redeemed by a Levite ; there were no Levites to re- 
deem this odd number. How could they be given to 
the Lord, then? 

God knew when each child was born, a Levite or a 
child of the other tribes, and he had allowed the odd 
number. 

How could the law be obeyed with a first-born son 
not redeemed ? 

If there was nothing in the law about them, how left 
out they must feel. But then who would know who 
was left out ? It was not satisfactory. There must be 
a better odd number in God’s plan. 

‘ 4 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying ’ ’ 

Ah, yes ; Moses was always told what to do in an 
emergency. 


THAT GIRL 


71 


“ Take the Levites instead of all the first-born among 
the children of Israel ” 

The first law was that each first-born son was 
to be devoted to the Lord. Now here was a way 
out for that first-born son — something that God liked 
just as well. 

“ And for those that are to be redeemed of the two 
hundred, threescore, and thirteen of the first-born of 
the childen of Israel which are more than the Levites ; 
thou shalt even take five shekels apiece . . . and 
thou shalt give the money wherewith the odd number 
of them is to be redeemed unto Aaron and to his 
sons.” If a man did not stand for them, money was 
to stand for them. 

God had* need, therefore, in his service, of money as 
well as men. 

And money had always been so little to her ; it was 
now so little to her ; it was too mean a thing to be a 
part of her living and glorious seif. And God would 
accept it for his service instead of a man ! She forgot 
that she was the odd number, that small annoyance was 
nothing to this glorious truth that God could use means 
as well as men. 

She had scorned money. She had wished she were 
poor like Shar and might be allowed to work ; some- 
times she thought she would rather sew shoes in a shoe 
shop than be a girl with all the money she wanted to 
spend for herself. 

Did God care for her money and ask for it ? She 
was ashamed that she held so lightly his treasure. 


72 


GOLDENROD FARM 


There was nothing to do about it immediately. She 
had all the old ways of giving. 

She must think. She would not ask Mr. Main- 
waring, she would not ask Mr. Hamilton — yet. 

She would like to make a way with her own pickaxe. 


CHAPTER III 


YARMOUTH STATION 

Thon wilt find, if thou art Christ’s, that after all, even at this 
day, endurance in a special sense is the lot of those who offer 
themselves to be servants of the King of sorrows. — Dr. Newman. 

When Jesus speaks not inwardly to us, all comfort is nothing 
worth ; but if Jesus speaks but one word we feel great consola- 
tion . — Thomas a Kempis. 

O NE evening in April, as Mary Main waring in her 
red gown v T as flitting up the stairway, her father 
from the doorway of his small sitting room called, 
“ Mary, come here.” 

The red figure hastened down and the two red arms 
were lifted and thrown about his neck, her hands 
clasped behind his white head. Her father petted his 
youngest daughter as if she were a child of three ; with 
him she never wished to grow old. 

4 4 Well, father dear,” she said, slipping away from 
him and looking up into his face. 

He closed the door and stood a moment silent and 
troubled. “I don’t know that you can help me. 
Shaw is out of town for a week and does not have to 
be told until he returns. Julius Wentworth did not 
come to the office to-day ; sent word that he had ac- 
cepted a position in New York. A sum of money is 
missing, three hundred dollars. He must have taken 

73 


74 


GOLDENROD FARM 


it out of the safe ; he is the only one besides ourselves 
who knows the combination. It is a new one, and we 
had a little joke about it. Shaw trusts him as he used 
to trust poor young Benson. I have tried to, but I 
never felt safe about it. His friends are not the friends 
for a man like him — easily led, no stamina. He has 
been elated over something lately, and wears a ring 
with a diamond in it.” 

Mary remembered Cynthia Gray and clasped her 
hands in a nervous way she had. 

“ I can send an officer after him and ruin him for 
life, but there is his mother. He is all she has, now 
that Mary is married, and she has had anxiety enough 
about him and spent all her living on him. Oh, for the 
good old-fashioned boy who remembers his mother! ” 
“I can go after him,” said Mary as quietly as 
though he were a small truant run away from school. 

“ Where will you go, child? He maybe in New 
York by this time. He trusted to my leniency, but 
Shaw will be hard on him.” 

“ I do not know — yet. I have not been told. But 
I don’t believe he is in New York. I will start for 
somewhere to-morrow morning. The boy is worth sav- 
ing, father.” 

“If he were my son I should think so. Do you 
suppose he would go to his sister in the country ? 9 9 
‘ ‘ He will hide somewhere to watch what will happen 
when Mr. Shaw returns. There’s Cynthia too, father.” 
“What has Cynthia Gray to do with it? ” he de- 
manded angrily. 


YARMOUTH STATION 


75 


“She has to do with him. I believe she gave him 
that ring. ” 

‘ ‘ Stuff and nonsense ! ’ ’ 

“It is not nonsense to her,” Mary said with a sigh ; 
“ it never is — to women. There are two women to be 
saved, and one man. If this thing is known it will 
spoil all his future, and there always is hope,” she 
pleaded. “ What do you suppose he did it for ? ” 

“What does any fool do such things for? He 
wanted the money. It is not so large a sum, three 
hundred dollars ; but he is a thief, and Shaw will put 
him through . 9 ’ 

‘ 6 Shall you tell mother ? ’ ’ 

“No one but you. I don’t know why I tell you ; I 
don’t know what a timid little woman like you can 
do.” 

‘ ‘ Then I will go out with you in the morning as I 
often do for the walk. If mother gives me something 
else to do, or says it looks like rain, you will have to 
insist that I go with you.” 

The red dress and the curls flitted away. The old 
man seated himself in his plush arm-chair near the 
grate, with the evening paper spread out upon his 
knees. “Cynthia too,” he muttered. “What ails 
girls now-a-days? My girls have always behaved 
themselves. ’ ’ 

An hour later when his wife entered and seated her- 
self in the other plush arm-chair on the other side of the 
grate, and inquired about the ship news, he replied 
that he had not been reading, he had been thinking. 


76 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“The 4 Mary Hamilton ’ sailed to-day/’ she re- 
marked. 44 Were you satisfied with her freight? ” 

44 Yes ; good enough. She has been waiting two 
days for a fair wind. I told Captain Curtis not to wait 
an hour longer. I was aboard this afternoon. Eliza- 
beth and Isabel came down to go over her. She’s a 
pretty craft. Elizabeth named her for their great- 
great-grandmother, you remember. Why, I declare, I 
never thought of it, ’ ’ he said, bringing his hand with a 
sudden stroke down upon his knee. 

4 4 Never thought of what, father?” inquired the 
small old lady with bobbing white curls at each side of 
her serene face. 

44 That a fellow missing from an office down-town 
might have stowed himself away in her. That about 
going to New York was a blind. The 4 Mary Hamil- 
ton ’ has sailed for Liverpool. He could make a joke 
of it to Curtis. He is a friend of Curtis. I declare ! 
How stupid I am.” 

44 What will you do ? ’ 

44 What should I do ? I sha’n’t do anything. Don’t 
talk to me, please. I have not read a word.” 

The next morning when Mary stood in the hall with 
her father, her mother called to her from the breakfast 
table : 44 Mary, it looks like rain. It always showers 
in April, and the wind is bleak. You’d better not go 
with father.” 

44 Let her come ; it will do her good,” her father re- 
turned carelessly ; 4 4 the air of the world has never 
blown on her much.” 


YARMOUTH STATION 


77 


“ That’s why it shouldn’t now.” 

“Oh, no,” he laughed; “that’s why it should. 
Come, Mary.” 

When they were in the street he said : “You are 
going on a fool’s errand. I believe he is stowed away 
on the ‘ Mary Hamilton. ’ Pie seemed anxious, now 
I remember it, to know when she would sail. If I hint 
my suspicion to Shaw he will send a cablegram and 
have him arrested before his foot touches soil.” 

“ But you will not tell him ? ” 

“ I must not betray the interests of my partner.” 

“ But wait, just wait, father,” she persuaded ; “ Mr. 
Hamilton told us last Sunday that we had a right to 
expect to be led. Perhaps I have a right to be led 
now. Christ cared for the son of the widow of Nain.” 
“ But he wasn’t a scamp, that we know.” 

‘ ‘ I think he cared all the more for scamps, ’ ’ with 
the tenderness and shyness with which she ever spoke 
of the One she loved best. 

They parted at Congress Street. So confident was she 
that she was being led that she took a car for Union 
Station and bought a ticket for Yarmouth. 

She had slept little ; she had prayed and received 
the assurance that her prayer was answered. 

Before the train stopped at Yarmouth it was raining, 
a slow, steady downpour; she looked out of the car win- 
dow ; it w T as bleak and wet, she had forgotten at the 
last moment to take rubbers, waterproof, and umbrella ; 
and indeed, if she were protected from the w T eather, in 
which direction should she w r alk ? 


78 


GOLDENROD FARM 


To Yarmouth she had come ; she was not 4 ‘told ” 
to go farther. She could sit still until she was told ; 
she had done that all her life. 

The waiting room was an unpleasant spot to her 
dainty ladyhood. She had never been in such a disa- 
greeable place in her life. At any other time she would 
have been distressed at her surroundings ; but now, 
after a glance about the small, dark room, she seated 
herself upon a wooden bench, drawing her skirts closer, 
waiting for what her Master would bring to her, or for 
his word of permission to go forth. 

On the bench beside her some one had dropped a 
half-sheet of soiled newspaper. 

Without taking it into her hand, she read the words 
under her eyes : “ It is so blessed to stand perplexed at 
the head of two or three paths, to shut one’s eyes and 
put one’s hand in his, saying : ‘ Jesus, lead me.’ It is 
so blessed when the path thus taken leads over sharp 
thorns and through a weary wilderness, to feel, ‘ He 
has led me here, I did not bring myself into this. ’ ’ ’ 

Talking in loud and rough voices a gang of track- 
men pushed themselves into the small room ; a big 
shaggy dog followed them, and shook off wet, unpleasant 
odors ; a profane word, the whiff of tobacco, a rude 
laugh — Mary Mainwaring drew her gray veil over her 
face ; the dog came to her with inquiring eyes. 

At that moment the freight train whistled, and 
through the open door she saw dashing down the road 
the man she had been sent to seek and find ; he rushed 
into the room, speaking familiarly to one of the men. 


YARMOUTH STATION 


79 


44 I’m going on the freight train with you, Tom.” 
Mary Main waring arose and lifted her veil ; Julius 
Wentw r orth stood face to face with the daughter of his 
employer. 

The muscles of his face became tense ; his face had 
the pallor of death ; he rallied all his moral and physi- 
cal strength to keep himself upon his feet. 

44 You may give it to me ; it will be safe,” she said, 
in a low tone. 

With fingers that almost refused to do the bidding 
of his will he fumbled in an inner pocket of his over- 
coat and laid the roll of bills in her hand. 44 It is all 
there,” he said, aloud. 44 1 regret to put you to this 
trouble. I am going on this freight. I meant to re- 
turn it, ’ ’ he added in a whisper ; 4 4 1 did not take it 
for myself ; tell your father so.” 

44 What shall I say to your mother ? ’ 9 
44 She knew I was going out of town for a few days ; 
I will write to her.” 

44 You surely will — you promise ? ” 

44 1 do ; upon my word.” 

The freight train whistled, and once more the small, 
dark room held only Mary Mainwaring. Like one in 
a dream she sat down upon the wooden bench with the 
roll of bills in her hand. She had been told what to 
do. Had she gone on to the village she would have 
missed him ; had he found her in the place alone, he 
would have refused to give her the money. The men 
had been watching and trying to listen, and there was 
nothing else for him to do. 


80 


GOLDENROD FARM 


He may have thought that her demand was backed 
by an officer of the law. 

W as he grateful that he was saved ? that he might 
begin again with no public stain upon his character? 
And now about poor Cynthia. Must Cynthia know ? 
Must she tell Cynthia ? Her father would if she did 
not. Such news might better be spoken by one woman 
to another. Cynthia had never cared for her, and she 
was afraid of Cynthia. 

In an hour the return train was due. It was a short 
hour. Two or three men lounged in and w T ent away ; 
the big, shaggy dog stepped gravely in, shook himself, 
and stepped gravely out ; the ticket-master gave her 
curious glances ; the rain fell heavily on the roof and 
the platform ; the lady veiled in gray, with the roll of 
bills tucked safely in an inner pocket, sat very still. 

She went direct to her father’s office, told him her 
strange story, and saw him unlock the safe and return 
the stolen money to its place. 

“ It’s wonderful, wonderful,” ejaculated the old 
man ; “ I suppose he will never show his face in Port- 
land again.” 

“ Father, ” after a hesitating moment, “ I will tell 
Cynthia. She must be told.” 

“ Very well,” he assented gruffly. 

“I wonder what has become of Julius Went- 
worth,” said Martha Gray one evening a week later ; 
‘ ‘ is your piano out of tune, Cyn, or has his violin a 
broken string ? ’ ’ 


YARMOUTH STATION 


81 


“He was not satisfied at Mainwaring & Shaw’s,” 
Cynthia answered with a perceptible break in her voice. 
“ He can do better in New T York. Mr. Hamilton gave 
him a letter of introduction to a firm there.” 

“I am glad of that,” exclaimed Martha with 
energy. “ I was tired of his violin and his long hair 
and his contempt of hard work and hard workers. 
Perhaps he can find a wider scope for his talents. I 
have never had a moment’s patience with him since he 
was born.” 

Elizabeth laughed and Isabel replied : 1 1 Cynthia has 
taken a great deal of trouble for him and, if he ever 
does do anything besides polish his violin, he has her to 
thank for it.” 

How could Cynthia lift her eyes to the sisters who were 
half understanding and tell them that she had, a month 
ago, promised to marry her boy -lover ? How could 
she tell them that Mary Mainwaring had told her of 
that hour in the Yarmouth station? How could she 
tell them that she believed in him still, and was deter- 
mined to do all that a woman could do to help a man 
outgrow himself and rise to ‘ ‘ better things ’ ’ ? 


F 




CHAPTER IV 


SOMETHING NEW 


These tourists, Heaven preserve us ! needs must live 
A profitable life. Some glance along, 

Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air, 

And they were butterflies to wheel about 
Long as the summer lasted ; some, as wise, 

Perched on the forehead of a jutting crag, 

Pencil in hand and book upon the knee, 

Will look and scribble. 


YNTHIA, I can’t see what you have to look so 


discouraged about. With that expression you 
will lose all your beauty. It worries Isabel. It breaks 
her heart when we are not glad and happy. Jessica is 
as merry as can be, and she has had real trouble, ’ ’ said 
Elizabeth. 

“ And so have you, you think. Well, you may think 
so, both of you, but yours is happiness to some people’s 
trouble. Life is too hard for women, anyway. I 
don’t see why I was born a woman. My beauty is 
going fast enough, and everything else.” 

That morning Elizabeth had read these words, by 
a physician of note : “ It is their impulsiveness and 
whimsicalities that make women unhappy.” It would 
hardly do to quote the words to Cynthia in her present 
irritable state of mind. 


— Wordsworth 



82 


SOMETHING NEW 


83 


Instead she said : “ You remind one of the spies who 
went up to the valley of Eshcol. You don’t know 
what you do when you discourage somebody. You take 
the heart out of people, and w r hat is left ? How do you 
know what has been promised to some person ? Y ou 
may be tempting him to lose faith in God. You are 
always doing it in a general way; often in some partic- 
ular way.” 

“You seem to get angry pretty often when you set 
us dowrn,” muttered Cynthia; “I’d like to know if that 
is Christian ? ’ ’ 

“The Lord’s anger was kindled against those dis- 
couragers,” Elizabeth answered with more sweetness. 
“ He had a right to be angry. And you make me 
angry, whether I have a right to be or not.” 

“ I can quote Bible as well as you : ‘ The land had 
been promised to them.’ How do I know that the 
things I talk against have been promised to you or any- 
body else ? ’ ’ 

“ How 7 do you know they are not promised ? There’s 
more than one w T ay of promising. Everybody doesn’t 
know our little secret w r ays of being promised.” 
Cynthia looked mystified ; she would have laughed but 
that she was too provoked with Elizabeth’s censure. 

“ I might retort, how does anybody know what I 
have had to discourage me ? ’ ’ 

“Then that is your little secret way of being dis- 
couraged. And you may better keep it secret.” 

“ As you do your ways of being promised,” was the 
scornful reply. 


84 


GOLDENROD FARM 


But her ways of being promised were secret ; they 
had the privilege of being hidden; only the Father who 
saw the secret things had the right to reward openly. 
When she had all her promises, that tvould be her open 
time. Her hidden times were very sweet. “If it 
were not so I would have told you/’ said Christ. 

He had not told her it was not so ; might that not be 
one of his ways of promising ? Of telling her that it 
was so ? 

“ I would be very sure people were not promised be- 
fore I discouraged the hoping, ’ ’ said Elizabeth in strong 
displeasure. 

“But I might encourage and do harm,” Cynthia 
demurred with penitence in her eyes. 

‘ ‘ I have never heard of that kind doing harm when 
the thing was right, ’ ’ said Elizabeth, ‘ ‘ and I have 
heard of the other kind doing harm.” 

‘ ‘ But this isn’t — spiritual. ’ ’ There were shame and 
reverence in her tone ; she hesitated a moment before 
she decided to say “ spiritual.” 

“Was the law of Israel a spiritual hope only? Milk 
and honey and houses filled with good things are a little 
bit earthly and material. We have as much right to 
make our houses and vineyards and milk and honey a 
spiritual hope as they had,” said Elizabeth spiritedly. 
“ I have as much right to good things as any children - 
of-Israel girl that ever lived, and hated, and worked, 
and hoped, in her land of Canaan.” 

“ Well, I don’t understand them or you either. You 
do get things so mixed up. By and by you will not 


SOMETHING NEW 


85 


know whether you are living on earth or in heaven/’ 
Cynthia replied heatedly. 

‘ ‘ I shall know I am living on earth as long as you 
carry that face around and say such things as you do 
say. Somebody said our life was not as idle ore, 

“ But iron dug from central gloom. 

The ‘ central gloom ’ appears to be the place you 
dig in.” 

“Well, that’s true of iron,” she answered, assured 
as well that it was true of her own digging into dark 
places. 

“ Of iron, yes,” said Elizabeth. 

“You never do see but one side of anything,” 
answered Cynthia. 

“And only one side of the moon,” said Elizabeth 
with a scornful laugh, ending the argument she was too 
angry to continue by gathering her bundles and leaving 
the room. 

It was so easy for her to be angry with her sister 
Cynthia. When one argued from the equator the other 
took the standpoint of the North Pole. 

‘ ‘ I would like to know where her valley of Eshcol 
is,” thought Cynthia. “She wouldn’t have been in 
such a tempest if I hadn’t touched a tender spot. If 
she’s thinking about Goldenrod Farm she hasn’t the 
ghost of a chance, and the sooner she is discouraged the 
better for her peace of mind.” 

The door was pushed open and the bundles and 
brown head thrust in. 


86 


GOLDEKROD FARM 


‘ ‘ The only things I do hold on hard to are people, 
and you know we can do that, because God does.” 

People were the things Cynthia was glad to let slip ; 
Elizabeth told her she was always letting people slip 
through her fingers. She retorted by saying she was 
waiting for some one worth holding on to. 

When Elizabeth was a little girl one of her dreams 
was to go to Cape Elizabeth ; some day when every- 
thing happened she would go. Nobody knew her wish, 
for she never even whispered it. She often heard of 
people who went, just as she sometimes heard of a 
Christian who started on his long way and got to the 
Celestial City at last. Now that she was grown up and 
everything was beginning to happen, she decided that 
she would take herself to Cape Elizabeth and the — 
Celestial City. She hopefully believed that she was 
grown up to do all the many things she had wanted to 
do when she was a dreaming and hoping little girl. All 
her life she had known what she wanted to do ; she 
was impatient of other people’s plans and suggestions ; 
she was crammed with plans of her own. 

‘ 4 1 think Elizabeth needs a change, a vacation, to 
be away off by herself — she takes her home too hard,” 
suggested the eldest sister in a council of sisters that 
afternoon. 

Elizabeth had gone down town on an errand. She 
was the errand girl of the household of women. 

“H’m,” half assented, half disdained Cynthia; “if 
she would give up some of her ideals and be satisfied 
like the rest of us.” 


SOMETHING NEW 


87 


4 ‘Satisfied — like the rest of us!” repeated Martha, 
with mocking emphasis. 

“ Then satisfied, without any likeness to the rest of 
us ; she needn’t look as if she were haunted by the 
ghost of her own dreams. I must say, Isabel, you 
humor that girl to death.” 

“ Then it will be good for her to be away from what 
is the death of her,” replied the eldest sister with her 
gentlest manner. “ The only question is, where shall 
she go ? ” 

“Isabel,” Cynthia’s eyes blazed, “you often say 
you would like to govern a house as God governs the 
world. He never humors me so. ” 

Isabel’s motherly face was troubled ; she did not 
remember that God ever did humor people in his gov- 
ernment. Perhaps her sister might better be made to 
go a harder way. But nowadays the girl lacked her 
usual spring ; she was not Elizabeth without that 
spring, without her touch-and-go movement, without 
the wings that were a part of herself. That broken 
engagement — but under God’s government things had 
to break, even hearts. The boy and girl grew to- 
gether ; the man and woman grew apart ; who knew, 
who would ever know, why her engagement was 
broken ? 

At night Isabel read her chapter ; her day would not 
have been fully and faithfully ended without her Bible 
chapter. The consciousness of another chapter on her 
second way through the Bible quieted her to sleep with 
a sense of duty done. This night she read drowsily ; 


88 


GOLDENROD FARM 


if she had any wakeful thought it was the burden of 
Elizabeth ; it was not an interesting chapter ; Hivites, 
Jebusites, the words slipped past her consciousness ; 
first-born — she was the first-born ; it was first-born that 
gave responsibility. Then she read listlessly : ‘ £ And 
it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go 
that God led them not through the way of the land of 
the Philistines, although that was near ; for God said, 
Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, 
and they return to Egypt: but God led the people 
about through the way of the wilderness of the Red 
sea.” God did not lead them the near way, but a 
long way. Perhaps she should lead her youngest sister 
the long way. She shut the book. She thought she 
would like to be more kind to her sister than God was 
to his people. Her endeavor to govern her household 
as God governed his people was not a success. She 
was too tender-hearted. How could she be wise as well 
as tender-hearted for Elizabeth ? God was wise ; he 
was not tender-hearted in his way of governing. 

In that same hour the sister who had been the subject 
of the household council that afternoon was preparing 
herself for sleep. The door was closed between the 
rooms. It was late ; the oldest sister and the youngest 
were the “ night birds.” Like Isabel, Elizabeth read 
the Bible as her last reading at night. The reading at 
night was devotional. The any-time-a-day reading was 
history, poetry, biography, story-telling, and human 
nature. To-night she read idly, almost aimlessly turn- 
ing the leaves to find something she wanted, if it was 


SOMETHING NEW 


89 


there. Sometimes it was not anywhere ; in the earth 
beneath, or in the heaven above. 

4 * And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the 
people go, that God led them not through the way of 
the land of the Philistines, although that was near ; for 
God said, Lest perad venture the people repent when 
they see war, and they return to Egypt ; but God led 
the people about through the way of the wilderness of 
the Bed sea.” 

Elizabeth was a student. She read the Bible like a 
student. She read it at such times as the literature 
class had read Homer. This literature class had opened 
her mind to a new way of reading the ancient literature 
of the Hebrews. 

The people were not led in the near way because of 
something in themselves. They were cow r ards. They 
did not know how to fight. They did not know how 
to trust God to fight for them. They were afraid of 
the Philistines. In human speech God was afraid for 
his people. He was afraid that they would return to 
Egypt. He did not change them. He did not change 
the Philistines. The wise thing was to change his plan 
for them. He was like the wise mother v T ho humors 
the child that cries out with fear. She takes the child 
by the hand and leads it another way, a longer way. 
But that would not matter. It would lead to the same 
place ; when the child was older, when it had learned 
more, it would not be afraid. In the meantime it was 
humored. God and mothers were wise enough to 
humor without spoiling their children. If God should 


90 


GOLDENROD FARM 


give her a change in her days, she would not be afraid 
of taking it ; it need not spoil her to be thus humored. 

But they did not do it themselves ; neither would 
she. He knew where the turning-about place was. 
God, the God of these old times, did consider the human 
heart and its temptations and change his ways to take 
his children out of temptation. 4 4 Lead us not into 
temptation/’ she prayed with fuller appreciation when 
she repeated, as in her childhood, before she went to 
sleep, the Lord’s Prayer. This petition was the one 
she thought of oftenest. She thought she had learned 
what it meant. 

At the breakfast table after her second silent cup of 
coffee, Cynthia remarked, with more asperity than she 
usually allowed herself at breakfast : 

44 I never can see why a girl’s going about on fool’s 
errands ever does any good.” 

44 Oh, yes it does,” said Elizabeth with her quick 
laugh ; 4 4 it proves to the girl’s friends that she is a 
fool. ’ ’ 

44 That is for the benefit of her friends, not of her- 
self, ’ ’ answered Cynthia. 4 4 1 was thinking of the girl. ’ ’ 
44 1 didn’t know you ever thought of the girl,” said 
Elizabeth sweetly ; 44 and I have come to the conclu- 
sion that the best place for you is at home. I am per- 
fectly willing you should end your natural life in this 
house. An old writer says : 4 What man is there that 
is fearful and faint-hearted ? Let him go and return 
unto his house, lest his brethren’s heart faint as well as 
his heart.’ ” 


SOMETHING NEW 


91 


“Elizabeth,” said Isabel with laughing eyes, “I 
know you made that up.” 

44 I think I should if he hadn’t said it,” said Eliza- 
beth. 

4 4 A girl can be young but once, ’ ’ observed Isabel to 
the breakfast table, her tone apologizing for her indul- 
gent words. 

44 And a woman can be old but once,” returned 
Elizabeth. 44 1 don’t see why one fact does not match 
the other and why it isn’t as good to be old as to be 
young. ’ ’ 

44 1 began early to be old,” said Isabel. 44 1 want 
you not to begin so early. ’ ’ 

44 You have had such a long time of being old, I 
never can think of you as young — ever,” reflected 
Elizabeth with the unsparing criticism of youth. 

4 4 When do you expect to be old ? ’ ’ inquired Cynthia 
with all the sharpness of her years of seniority. 

44 At seventy-five, ” was the demure and cheerful 
reply. 44 In exactly half a century.” 

44 You will get tired of doing the same things fifty 
years longer,” said Martha. 44 1 wouldn’t want to be- 
long to your hundred societies for anything, and being 
always on the hop, skip, and jump after poor people, 
and in dreadful places.” 

44 1 shall have seventy-five young years ; in the nature 
of things I cannot expect to have seventy-five old 
years.” 

44 You don’t know what you will lose,” said Martha. 

44 1 know what we will do,” proposed Jessica ; 44 we 


92 


GOLDENROD FARM 


will go to Europe, all of us, all five of us. We have 
talked about it for years, now we will go.” 

‘ ‘ Good ! ’ ’ assented Martha heartily. 

“ I think I would like to go,” said Cynthia to the 
surprise of them all. 

“ You don’t go with all your heart, or you do go 
with all your heart,” said Isabel. “ Cynthia, what 
moves you ? ’ ’ 

“ Sheer weariness of life. I must do something new 
or die. I think I would rather do something new. ’ ’ 


CHAPTER V 


PLANS 

Some silent laws onr hearts will make, 

Which they shall long obey ; 

We for the year to come may take 
Our temper from to-day. 

— Wordsworth. 

T HE maid brought the morning mail, as usual, into 
the breakfast room. 

“Elizabeth, what are you sparkling over?” asked 
Martha with a touch of envy. “Nothing ever hap- 
pens to me.” The morning mail had brought nothing 
to her excepting a card announcing the spring opening 
at her favorite milliner’s. 

“ Mary Wentworth Marsten’s letter,” was the an- 
swer. “ Let me read it to you. No, I will tell you. 
The pine cottage is furnished, and ‘ father and mother 
Marsten ’ are as glad as she wants them to be of her 
plan of keeping summer boarders. They had several 
people last summer, but she wants a crowd this sum- 
mer ; four people in the house and the thirteen pine 
chambers full. Besides, the Burbanks will take lodgers, 
four in their rooms, and they will take table board at 
Goldenrod Farm. The sitting room has been fitted up 
for a dining room, newly papered, floor painted, and 
the old dining room remodeled. Shar Burbank is to 

93 


94 


GOLDENROD FARM 


come for the boarding season, and another girl and 
Aunt Martha will do the rest. Cousin Howard will do 
the farming and Uncle Howard the looking on. There 
is to be a young man for trunks and meeting the boat 
and train. To think of my Goldenrod Farm being de- 
voted to such common uses! The prettiest pine room 
is for me, Mary writes, one window looking over the 
bay, and the other across the fields into the rocks that I 
love as I do the rocks on the shore, into the cleared -up 
woods where the hammocks will be swung. I would like 
to pay extravagant board, but I know I mustn’t hurt 
their pride. Shar has not been well and is willing to 
come for change of work. What a workaday world 
this is and what idle people we are.” 

“ You will not go to England and the continent with 
us,” said Jessica in affectionate rebuke. “ Think of all 
that is waiting for you there.” 

“ It has waited so long it will not spoil by waiting 
a few years longer. The Europe craze has never seized 
me.” 

“It isn’t the Europe craze with me,” reminded 
Jessica. 

“It is with me, ’ ’ declared Martha ; “I know my 
own country by heart. Where haven’t we been ? ” 

“ I do not like to leave you, Elizabeth,” said Isabel 
with regret in the brown eyes that Elizabeth loved. 

“ I do not see why not. What possible harm can 
come to me ? I am of age, of sound mind, in splendid 
health. Mrs. Hinchley is always here if I wish to re- 
turn. You may stay a year, if you like. I may like 


PLANS 


95 


winter in the country. I want to do something I never 
did before. I have done all the tame things. ” 

“You might turn chambermaid like Sliar Bur- 
bank/ ’ suggested Cynthia; “ I shouldn’t be surprised.” 

“ I wish I could,” said Elizabeth fervently. 

“ Don’t adopt a poor young man and marry him,” 
advised Martha with a glance at Cynthia. 

Cynthia was reading for the third time a letter from 
Julius Wentworth mailed in New York. 

“ I am out of patience with you, Elizabeth,” Martha 
continued; “you have more money than any of us; 
yours was accumulating while we were spending ours, 
and you are the youngest, if that goes for anything 

> t 

“ And the ugliest,” interjected Elizabeth, who had 
been reminded that she was not pretty ever since she 
could remember. 

“Well, that doesn’t matter. You come as near 
being pretty as a girl can without being actually pretty. 
And your only claim to being a society girl is that you 
belong to societies without number : secretary of the 
Young Women’s Christian Association, and officer in 
guilds and Helping Hands and Ten-Minutes-a-Day 
Society, on the Hospital Board, and the Shut-in So- 
ciety, and the King’s Daughters, and Greek class, and 
literary society, and as many more. You might as 
well be Elizabeth Fry.” 

‘ ‘ Elizabeth Marsten is enough for me to handle, ’ ’ 
replied Elizabeth. 

‘ ‘ Isabel is a member of the church as well as yon 


96 


GOLDENROD FARM 


and she doesn’t hurry-scurry over the city doing 
people good, ’ ’ reproved Jessica. 

“Isabel’s temperament doesn’t rush her into things 
as mine does.” 

“Then it’s temperament, not Christianity,” re- 
marked Cynthia, with the finest edge to her tone, 
refolding her letter with careful fingers. 

‘ ‘ Temperament has a great deal to do with it, ’ ’ ex- 
plained Elizabeth sweet-temperedly. “It is easier for 
me to rush than to keep quiet. It is no self-sacrifice to 
me. I love it.” 

“ Then your motives are not the purest,” said Mar- 
tha. 

“Oh, dear no!” exclaimed Elizabeth impatiently. 
“ Don’t think me a saint, like Elizabeth Fry.” 

4 ‘ Probably she had her share of temperament, ’ ’ said 
Isabel. “I know I am lax in my duty as a church- 
member. When we return from this trip I will give up 
some of my frivolities.” 

“ Then you will not be our Isabel, our dear, charm- 
ing Isabel, ’ ’ said Martha. ‘ ‘ Elizabeth is incorrigible, 
and I do believe it is the influence of Parson Hamilton 
and Mary Main waring. ’ ’ 

“Mary Mainwaring hasn’t a particle of tact or 
sympathy or refinement,” replied Cynthia bitterly, 
creasing her letter with the tips of her fingers. 

“ Elizabeth, you will tear your hair over our letters 
and go raving crazy when we come home laden with 
art treasures. How much may I spend for you ? ’ ’ 
asked Isabel. 


PLANS 


97 


“ Your letters are all the treasures I want. Not 
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay 
for me.” 

“You have never seen a place like Mainwaring 
Park,” reminded Jessica ; “it may entice me to let the 
girls come home without me.” 

“ Goldenrod Farm is a natural park.” 

“ As natural as the natives, ’ ’ said Cynthia ; “I sup- 
pose you will pick up the Burbanks again ? ’ ’ 

“I shall be grateful to them to be picked up my- 
self,” said Elizabeth spiritedly. “You never do care 
for my friends. ’ ’ 

“Girls, don’t quarrel,” expostulated the eldest sis- 
ter; “ we have shopping and dressmaking and all the 
world to do.” 

“ Elizabeth will dress in white and sit by a brook,” 
taunted Cynthia. “ Elizabeth, I wouldn’t be so senti- 
mental as you are for anything. You never will be 
practical. Life is something more than a plaything.” 
Elizabeth laughed to keep the angry retort from 
her lips and left the breakfast table to ‘ ‘ run across the 
street ’ ’ to Mary Mainwaring. 

When she was a child and her sisters were cross to 
her she had fled to Mary Mainwaring. 

‘ ‘ Perhaps Cynthia has something to be anxious 
about — or somebody,” said Mary Mainwaring; “we 
do not know people’s lives — underneath.” 

Elizabeth had always believed that her sister Cynthia 
had no “underneath.” 

G 


CHAPTER VI 


IN HER t( WOODLAND DRESS 

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 

The earth, and every common sight, 

To me did seem 
Appareled in celestial light, 

The glory and the freshness of a dream. 

— Wordsworth. 

O NE morning early in August, Elizabeth stood on 
the end of the piazza that was nearest the kitchen 
door, one of the kitchen doors, at Goldenrod Farm. 
About fifteen busy people and idlers stood, lounged, or 
worked, on the long piazza. Mrs. Wentworth was 
among the workers. Her morning work was a letter to 
her son J ulius ; when finished it would cover both sides 
of eleven sheets of a pad of note paper size. He had a 
position in a music store in New York, with a salary 
of eighteen dollars a week. He had written to his 
mother that it would be a good thing for her to shut 
up the house and spend the summer with Mary, as on 
his small earnings he would not be able to do anything 
for her. His plans were not matured, but he had the 
promise of a splendid future. 

On the fifth page of her pad she was writing that 
two mothers -in -law seemed to be one too many for the 
peace of one house. She was determined that Mary 
98 


99 


IN HER “ WOODLAND DRESS ” 

should not work so hard, and her husband’s mother 
thought she was not working hard enough and that she 
did not need an hour of rest in the afternoon ; and Mary 
w T as losing flesh and color by the day. 

It was not pleasant for her to be at a boarding house 
and pay no board, she had borne it four weeks and she 
would bear it no longer, even if she had to go into the 
kitchen to work for her board. 

One of the loungers was Luke Leflerts ; he sat on the 
side piazza in a steamer chair, with a cigar between his 
fingers, endeavoring to prove to Shar Burbank’s step- 
father that farming had no bright side. 

But he shrugged his good-humored shoulders, refused 
a fine cigar, jumped into his buggy and drove down the 
road, with a nod to Shar, who stood in the kitchen 
doorway, among the sweet pea vines. 

Mr. Leflerts arose and sauntered around to the end 
of the piazza where Elizabeth stood, undecided and 
somewhat perplexed. She would like to ask Mr. Lef- 
ferts exactly where that old property was of which he 
had spoken and which seemed so inviting, but then he 
might propose to walk with her. 

4 4 Do you remember the poem Wordsworth wrote to 
his sister Dorothy ? ” he asked. 

4 4 Did he write but one ? ’ ’ asked Elizabeth saucily. 

4 4 This one was to invite her to take a walk with 
him. It’s a pretty thing.” 

4 4 Possibly, ’ ’ remarked Elizabeth, with a tone that 
he divined was not intended for the poet. 

Nevertheless, he repeated easily : 


100 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ Then come, my sister ! come, I pray, 

With speed put on your woodland dress ; 

And bring no book : for this one day 
We’ll give to idleness.” 

‘ ‘ I will not consent to give even one to idleness, ’ ’ 
she said lightly. “ I am looking for a companion who 
shall be wise and busy with me. Good-bye.” 

With a laugh she stepped off the piazza to the broad 
stone and went to one of the open kitchen doors. 

‘ ‘ I am like the idle child in the story, there is no one 
to play with me. I’ll have to start out to find a new 
piece of mental furniture — I am too idle.” 

She stood in the center of the busy kitchen ; Aunt 
Martha was pushing an apple pie into the oven. Mary 
Wentworth and Shar were washing dishes at the sink. 

“ AYliat news from over the sea ? ” asked Mary. 

“ A long letter from each of them ; Isabel keeps a 
journal for me. Main waring Park is the finest place 
in England (it happens to be the only one they know), 
and everybody is delightful, and they are delighted. 
No thought of America for this year, or the next you 
would think. Well, if you will not go with me I’ll 
go by myself ; I can find enough in the woods. ’ ’ 

Shar’s eyes followed her wistfully ; all July and a 
part of August she had labored in that kitchen, in the 
dining room, and in the cottage. So many people to 
please, so many steps to be taken, and the dish-washing 
and ironing that never ended. 

The look in Shar’s eyes went to Elizabeth’s heart. 
What an idle thing she was herself, flitting about 


101 


IN HER “ WOODLAND DRESS ” 

like a butterfly all day and like a firefly at night. But 
she could not take Shar’s place, not for one hour ; she 
could not offer to pay her board and let her rest some- 
where ; the proud thing would accept nothing but love. 
The rich girl, after all, had nothing to give to the poor 
girl, except love. 

“ Good-bye, Shar,” she said, and started off with 
overflowing strength. 

That morning, this girl, who had never been ill one 
day in her life, said to herself that she would like to 
walk forever ; she would like to walk around the 
world. 

She felt through all her pulses run 
The royal blood of breeze and sun. 

She would take a new walk that morning. Mr. Lef- 
ferts had said at the breakfast table that an old farm 
was for sale ; the buildings were tumbling down, but the 
land was picturesque. 

“ A mile through the woods, and turn to the right.” 
Cousin Howard had given her the directions. 

An acre of golden bloom ; was there ever such 
goldenrod ? On the hillside, the rocky hillside, a little 
way up, stood the house that was tumbling down. Not 
much of a place for a farmer whose bread must come 
out of the soil ; to her it was better than gold itself. 

This Property for Sale 

ON EASY TERMS. 

Inquire of 

E. Poor, 17 Congress St., Portland. 


102 


GOLDENROD FARM 


She laughed as she read the words on the broken 
board fastened to an apple tree. 

“ How easy, I wonder? I suppose it will be cour- 
teous to speak to Mr. Mainwaring about it. It is the 
place I want in all the whole earth. ” 

She climbed up the rocks to the goldenrod, and 
plucking a yellow plume fastened it in her belt. She 
would write to Mr. Mainwaring that day, and put him 
in communication with E. Poor, 17 Congress Street, 
Portland. What would she do with the place ? Own 
it ! Own all the goldenrod she wanted. 

She turned back into the woods in search of balsam - 
fir ; she had brought her bag and her scissors. Mary 
Mainwaring should have a fragrant pillow of her pick- 
ing. After an hour of picking and walking, her two- 
mile tramp brought her to the edge of the woods and into 
the road. The place was unfamiliar. She was heated 
and very thirsty ; her unbleached muslin bag, half 
filled with sweet fern and balsam, she had fastened with 
a safety pin to her belt ; one hand was loaded with 
goldenrod. 

Down the road she espied a white house, large, com- 
fortable-looking. It was rather too pretentious for her 
to dare to ask a glass of milk for a price, but no other 
was near. It was within two hours of dinner time, and 
she had a long walk before her. 

“I’ll dare,” she said to herself, and walked around 
the drive to the kitchen door. “I’m thirsty enough 
to dare anything.” 

“Why, yes; do come in. I’m glad to see you. 


103 


IN HER “ WOODLAND DRESS ” 

I’m all alone and ironing. But I’ll give you a glass 
of milk and welcome, and a cooky too, if you w T ant it. 
I always bake when I iron.” 

The voice was shrill, the speaker gaunt and thin ; her 
front hair was put up in hairpins, and her dark calico 
dress was buttoned with large porcelain buttons. The 
aroma of baking was in the air. 

“ I do not know that I may offer to pay you ” 

began Elizabeth, as she went into the sitting room, 
where the ironing board was laid upon the backs of 
two chairs. 

“ Oh, yes, you may. You may offer, and pay me 
besides. I used to cook for picnics before I had pneu- 
monia ; they sent word, and we had clam bakes for 
them. I kept boarders too, before I had pneumonia ; 
that is what we had the house enlarged for ; but it 
didn’t pay. I couldn’t do it myself ; I had to keep 
help, and that didn’t pay. Sit down in that rocker. 
Lay your things down. City folks always like to pick 
things. Didn’t you know when you started off where 
you were starting for ? ’ * 

“ A walk is enough to start for any time. I can do 
seven miles any day. I believe I am tired because I 
am hungry and thirsty.” 

“ Then sit down, and you sha’n’t be tired long. You 
look as though you never could get tired. You row 
and swim and do all those things, I suppose.” 

“ Oh, yes ; I do everything,” said Elizabeth, drop- 
ping her goldenrod on the oilcloth, “even make rugs. 
What old beauties of rugs you have ! ” 


104 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ Yes, indeed. My mother and grandmother made 
them. I made that one your feet are on. Take off 
your hat.” 

Elizabeth threw her hat down beside the scattered 
goldenrod. The lady brought her a white, blue -edged 
plate holding three cookies, and a glass of milk. “ Set 
up to the table,” she invited cordially. 

“ I believe I can’t find my pocketbook.” 

The woman’s countenance fell ; she looked at Eliza- 
beth suspiciously, with her hot iron in her hand. 

“Oh, here it is!” Elizabeth exclaimed, “it is in 
my fir bag, with my scissors. ’ ’ 

Opening her pocketbook Elizabeth laid a twenty-five- 
cent piece on the table beside her plate. Her eyes 
were brimming with fun at the expression of relief 
upon the face of the lady of the house. 

“I haven’t any change,” said her hostess, setting 
down the iron, “ and that’s too much.” 

“ Oh, no, it isn’t ; they are so fresh and nice.” 

“ But I don’t want to take too much.” 

“ Let me judge of that, please. Don’t you remem- 
ber how glad Esau was to pay a large price that time 
he was so hungry ? ’ ’ 

“ But you have something left,” said the woman, 
noticing that her visitor pressed a bill back into her 
pocketbook. “ Why do you carry so much with 
you ? ’ ’ 

“ That is only a dollar,” replied Elizabeth, biting the 
fresh cooky with a relish. 

‘ ‘ A dollar is a good deal, ’ ’ remarked the woman, 


105 


IN HER u WOODLAND DKESS” 

taking the silver piece with eager fingers. She went to 
the corner cupboard and dropped the money into a 
china mug. 

“ Not so much as milk and cookies.’ ’ 

“ I have more cookies than dollars.” 

“So have I, just now. Will you include another 
glass of milk in my twenty -five cents ? ” 

“You know how to do business.” 

“ But you can’t change my dollar, and you wouldn’t 
take a dollar without change,” explained Elizabeth. 
“ I do not wish to push a bargain.” 

“ No ; that would be too much like Esau and Jacob. 
I didn’t like to take the quarter. I drink milk my- 
self. I haven’t drunk tea or coffee since I had the 
pneumonia. You shall have two glasses more of milk, 
and some cookies to put in your bag! Did you ever 
have pneumonia ? ’ ’ 

“ I never had anything. I am refreshed already. I 
like old houses. Isn’t there an old house on this 
place ? ’ ’ 

But the dark calico had disappeared down the cellar 
steps. The woman returned with a small pitcher and 
set it down beside Elizabeth’s plate of cookies. 

“ It hasn’t been skimmed.” 

‘ ‘ I can see that. Do not let me interrupt your 
ironing. ’ ’ 

“ Nobody ever interrupts me ; I always go right on. 
Where are you from? New York? Most folks that 
come here are from New York — except a lady who 
boarded here before I had pneumonia ; she was from 


106 


GOLDENROD FARM 


the West. When she went home there was a cyclone 
in her town and she had to go into the cellar for safety. 
I’ll never go West.” 

‘ ‘ My home is in Portland, about twenty miles from 
here. ’ ’ 

“ Oh, I know Portland. I’ve been there. The old 
house you inquired about, that is gone long ago. I 
was born in it.” 

“ Then you are one of the old families? ” Elizabeth 
said. ‘ ‘ Did your family flee here when Portland was 
destroyed by the Indians ? ’ ’ 

“ Four generations we have been here — we Cum- 
mingses, ’ ’ said the woman in the dark calico, not paus- 
ing in her swift work of pushing the hot flatiron over 
the red -edged, white -fringed towel that belonged to the 
“ parlor chamber.” “ It’s natural for it to seem like 
home when you can see your great -great -grandfather’s 
and your great-grandfather’s and your grandfather’s 
and your father’s headstone in the graveyard — and the 
place for your own in the same lot. As I’m unmarried 
I shall be buried there too. That’s the only place I 
shall change to. I went to Massachusetts once and 
stayed two months. My ! ’ ’ with a vigorous shove of 
the iron, “ wasn’t I homesick ? ” 

“Because you couldn’t see your great -great -grand- 
father’s grave?” suggested Elizabeth, with becoming 
sympathy. 

“ That was a part of it.” 

“A grave part of it,” twinkled off Elizabeth’s lips. 

“Well, there was everybody and everything else 


IN HER “ WOODLAND DRESS V 


107 


too — all the old relics and the new things as they’ve 
come up. When I was a child I can remember wak- 
ing in the morning, and hearing the noises of the work 
in the shipyards, and now there isn’t a hammer — not a 
blow of any kind. And there used to be nine ship- 
yards along here.” 

“ What happened to them ? ” 

“I don’t know. I suppose something happens to 
make the ruined cities we read about. I always 
wonder what does happen. People don’t need as many 
ships as they used to, or they’re made somewhere else. 
It’s queer about families and places dying out. Three 
Cummingses here in this house, and not one Cummings 
to come after us. I tell Joe that. I have great hopes 
of him if he can have his way. I never thought Jim 
would get married. I always thought a great deal of 
my folks ; I never found a man in this town handsome 
enough to marry, to marry me. But it’s sad about 
our branch of the family dying out. My sister married 
and died, and all her children ; but they wouldn’t have 
been Cummingses,” she remembered with a touch of 
family pride. “ There’s plenty of Cummingses ; but my 
father is not the head of a tribe, and I wanted him to 
be ; he was such a good man, and such a bright man ; 
he was like Joe. Not a bit like Jim and me.” 

“ Did you ever see the specter ship? ” asked Eliza- 
beth. She was interested in “ Joe” ; had not Shar 
confided her trouble to her ? 

“ The ghost of a ship?” was the reply ; “is that 
what you mean ? ’ ’ 


108 


GOLDENROD FARM 


4 ‘There is a legend in connection with Harpswell 
about a specter ship ; it is seen as an omen of death ; it 
drives along in the bay but never reaches land.” 

“ Who has seen it. ” 

“ Whittier wrote a poem about it. ” 

“ Well, isn’t poetry always about ghosts of things ? ” 
“ Very often. And this certainly is. I thought 
you might know how the legend originated. Every- 
thing has to have a beginning, you know. There is 
always a truth to begin with.” 

“ There’s always something ; I don’t believe it is al- 
ways a truth,” said Miss Cummings, with conviction. 
‘ ‘ But what is the poetry like ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Like this : 

“In vain o’er Harpswell Neck, the star 
Of evening guides her in. 

‘ ‘ And another verse : 

“In vain the harbor boat shall hail, 

In vain the pilot call ; 

No hand shall reef her spectral sail, 

Or let her anchor fall.” 

“Then the poem is all about nothing. I thought 
better of Whittier than that.” 

‘ ‘ But he meant something ; we may be sure of that. 
That is only a part of it. ’ ’ 

“I don’t think it is worth while to tell a part of 
anything, do you ? ’ ’ 

“ But that is all I know.” 


IN HER “ WOODLAND DRESS ” 


109 


‘ ‘ Then you might better tell me something that you 
know the whole of. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I do not know the whole of anything. Only God 
does. He is the only safe story teller. Do you know 
the hymn about life’s unfinished story? ” 

“No ; and if it is unfinished I don’t want to,” re- 
plied Miss Cummings, bringing her iron down with a 
thump. 

‘ ‘ Then I never can come to talk to you again ; for 
I never can finish anything.” 

“ Don’t you finish your work ? ” 

“ I try to. But that is not something to talk 
about.” 

‘ ‘ I could finish all about the Cummingses if you 
would stay to listen.” 

“ Who told you all about them ?” 

“ Can’t I see for myself? ” 

“Then you are something that I am not — a seer. 
I wish I was.” 

“ That’s a prophet, isn’t it? I can tell you where 
there is one. Her house is in the woods ; I’ll show you 
the way. She lives by faith. Is that the kind you 
want? Joe calls her the Faith Woman.” 

“Yes,” said Elizabeth ; “ she is the woman I have 
started out to find.” 

‘ ‘ I suppose she thinks she knows the whole of it. I 
asked her where my lost thimble was and she was 
angry. I went on purpose to get her to find it for me. 

How her eyes burned ” 

Elizabeth arose and set the empty glass on the table. 


110 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ Thank you. I have been very much entertained.” 
“ If you’ll come again and I am not busy I’ll show 
the book my father kept accounts in, and a piece of 
the wedding dress of a girl who was stolen by the 
Indians and a young man went after her and brought 
her back to this farm — not to this house — and married 
her. But, if you must go now, I’ll go to the door and 
show you how to go to Faith Cottage ; and if she finds 
anything for you you will have me to thank for it. 
Have you lost anything ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I want to find something, ’ ’ said Elizabeth with a 
smile that touched Miss Cummings into wishing to find 
something herself. 

“ Then follow this road and turn to the right into 
the woods ; you’ll find a carriage road, and turn off 
from that a little way — but you’ll see the house ; it 
fronts on the water. It isn’t a ghost, like the ship; but 
it is shut up in winter. Stop there as you did here ; she 
is always glad to see people. She believes the Lord 
sends people to her house.” 

“ Then she is aware that she entertains angels.” 

Her hostess followed her to the door and pointed to 
the road. 

“ You can’t fail if the Lord is leading you,” she 
said simply. 

“ I am glad you believe that,” Elizabeth said to the 
saint in the calico dress with her hair in crimps. 

‘ ‘ Do you belong to the church ? ’ ’ Miss Cummings 
asked. 

“ Yes.” 


Ill 


IN HER c< WOODLAND DRESS ” 

“I always like to know that about people. I like 
to know who they are, and if they belong to the Lord, 
and have joined his church. I knew you had, and 
that’s why I felt so kindly and sort of neighborly 
toward you.” 


CHAPTER YII 


FAITH COTTAGE 

It is very good for strength 
To know that some one needs us to be strong. 

T) EFRESHED and jubilant Elizabeth went on her 
k ^ way again ; in her walks she had prowled around 
the summer cottages on the shore, and one had 
especially pleased her imagination : the house with one 
corner founded on a rock, with the tall rough stone out- 
side chimney and the vine -enclosed piazza. 

She went straight to Faith Cottage, as straight as 
Christian to the wicket gate, and knocked as boldly as 
he on the open door. 

A pause, a light, quick step, then a tiny figure in a 
white -and -blue gingham working dress stood within the 
open door. 

“Oh, come in,” was the cordial greeting, with a 
smile and a welcoming hand. 

“ That is what I came to do,” said Elizabeth, taking 
the small hand and smiling down into the happy eyes. 
‘ ‘ I was directed here by one who said everybody might 
come.” 

“Then it was the Lord. He knows it and sends 
people. Of course you want to see Sister Deborah?” 

“ If I may, without intruding. ’ ’ 

112 


FAITH COTTAGE 


113 


“ Will you wait on the piazza, or come in ? ” 

“ I will wait on the piazza.” 

Again, with her fir bag and bunch of goldenrod, 
Elizabeth seated herself in a new place. 

* ‘ Child of many prayers ! ’ ’ 

What should remind her of the words and Parson 
Hamilton’s voice in speaking them? Was her coming 
to Sister Deborah an answer to one of his prayers? 
This was a new, but not a strange place ; she had been 
away and come back home. Her spirit had been in 
this place before with the woman she was to meet. 

The mite of a woman disappeared and, before Eliza- 
beth heard a footfall, Sister Deborah stood before her 
on the piazza. 

Elizabeth arose. “ I am glad you have come,” said 
Sister Deborah. Then, to the girl’s astonishment she 
gathered her into her arms as if she were a lost child. 

“I know you. Come up into my own place.” 
Through the reception room with its floor of narrow 
boards and rugs, up the pretty stairway and along a 
narrow corridor Elizabeth followed her guide into her 
own place. 

It was the largest room in the house, fronting the 
bay ; the first impression was of light and fresh air, 
then Elizabeth saw a couch or two, a desk, pictures, 
and willow chairs. 

“Seat yourself wherever you like,” invited Sister 
Deborah ; ‘ ‘ after I have written to my dear boy and 
only nephew, Harry Morse, you and I will say what- 
ever we wish to each other.” 


H 


114 


GOLDENROD FARM 


Sister Deborah closed the door and seated herself at 
her desk. It was not a lady’s desk ; it was an office 
desk and had the air of business. There was an air of 
business about the lady that surprised Elizabeth. She 
had thought she was coming to a saint, and this Sister 
Deborah was a lady with as charming a manner as 
Isabel’s, and with something of the energy of a woman 
who had earthly affairs on her mind. 

Sister Deborah had not closed both doors opening 
into the room ; through the other door Elizabeth saw 
a room all white and gold, all sunshine and lilies ; the 
perfume of day-lilies was in the air. It was the 
place for an infant, or a girl with a pure heart, or an 
angel. Over Sister Deborah’s desk were hung words 
of gold within a white frame ; she read the words of 
gold and then looked at the white-haired woman, the 
very spirit of the words : 

Ask God to give thee skill 
In comfort’s art 

That thou mayst consecrated be 
And set apart 
Unto a life of sympathy, 

For heavy is the weight of ill 
In every heart ; 

And Comforters are needed much 
Of Christlike touch. 

To the woman of twenty -four the woman of fifty - 
five was very old ; the white hair was a crown of glory. 
The large eyes were splendid in their darkness and 
brightness ; the face was brown with the light of the 


FAITH COTTAGE 


115 


sun ; between the dark eyebrows were lines of thought, 
but with this exception the brow was unwrinkled ; the 
health tint was in lips and cheeks ; the plump hand that 
rested on the desk, with its rapid fingers, was the most 
beautiful hand Elizabeth had ever seen. The fingers 
moved with a smile upon the lips. That dear boy of 
hers must love her very much. Then, thinking that 
she w T as scanning her too curiously, her eyes roved over 
the room ; this time she found another lettering in 
gold : 

It may be just as cursed an ambition to want 
to be used , as to want to have money , or to want 
to have one’ s pride fuljilled . What you and I 

need to have , is not to be used y but to be filled. 

Isabel was beautiful like Sister Deborah, with the 
same brown beauty, the same white hair, the same 
splendid eyes ; perhaps her mother was like that — how 
her heart cried out for a mother like this woman ! 
Shar said she did not love her mother ; she was always 
shocked when Shar said it. 

The letter was written, put in its envelope, addressed 
and stamped, then the dark eyes were lifted to the girl 
waiting in the willow chair. 

“ You have not laid aside your hat. Throw down 
those things. You surely forgot that you were at 
home.” 

“ I couldn’t forget. I am too glad to be here.” 

“ I know it, dear. Tell me all about it.” 

“ It will take a week, two weeks.” 


116 


GOLDENROD FARM 


‘ ‘ 1 hope it will take two weeks ; I want you two 
weeks.” 

“ Oh, do you want me? I thought it was I who 
wanted you. I came because I w T as told you had faith. 
Mr. Lefferts — I suppose I may speak his name — has 
been doing his best, or his worst, where I am staying 
to unsettle those of us who thought we had faith. I 
know I have it or I could not have withstood his argu- 
ments. He talked at the table and on the piazza. I 
never answered him. I ran to my Bible. I took Shar 
Burbank with me to the Bible. He hurt her more 
than he hurt me. Mr. Hamilton, my guardian and 
my pastor, kept him from hurting me. I was so 
troubled for Shar. ’ ’ 

“ Bring Shar with you the next time.” 

“ Oh, may I ? You can’t think how she is troubled. 
She doesn’t love her mother, either. Isn’t it dreadful 
for a girl not to love her mother ? ’ ’ 

“ I think it is.” 

‘ ‘ Shall I talk my autobiography to you ? But you 
are giving too much time to me.” 

“That is what my time is for — to give to you. 
Friends in the next cottage asked me to go rowing this 
morning. I hardly knew why I refused. Now I know ; 
it was because you w r ere on your w 7 ay to me.” 

‘ ‘ It must be beautiful to know — like that. ’ ’ 

“ It is. Now begin your autobiography.” 
Elizabeth laughed. She began with her sisters, and 
her mother’s second marriage, and death, and her own 
first love, Goldenrod Farm, and then school days, and 
boarding-school days in New York, and travel, travel 


FAITH COTTAGE 


117 


every summer whither her sisters would, with a little 
while eked out for Goldenrod F arm ; of Mark Benson 
she spoke in few words, scarcely touching upon the 
time since his death, bringing in her guardians and 
Mary Mainwaring, w T ho had been shut in so many 
years and now was let out into the beauty and work 
of the world ; and of Shar Burbank, who had aspira- 
tions and an unsympathetic mother. 

“Can you tell me why, with almost everything I 
want, I am not happy, not satisfied ?” she said wist- 
fully. 

“You have made your own heavenly places. There 
is no happiness in heavenly places without Christ Jesus ; 
some one, or some work, or some pleasure is ever com- 
ing between yourself and himself. It is not only in 
heavenly places, but with — with Christ Jesus. The 
Revised version has it, ‘ Quickened us together with 
Christ, and raised us up with him, and made us to sit 
with him in the heavenly places. ’ The worldliest heart 
longs to be in beautiful places, but only the fully sur- 
rendered heart and life and will longs to be with Christ 
Jesus. ” 

Elizabeth’s heart smote her. It had been first 
Mark, and then — it had been always somebody, or some 
study or work or plan with her in her heavenly places. 
4 ‘ Together ’ ’ to her had signified some earthly friend ; 
it had never been “ together with Christ.” She had 
forgotten, or never even thought, “ with him.” “ To- 
gether ’ ’ was herself and Christ — w T ould she ever be 
satisfied with only Christ ? 

“ I thought I was sent into the country on an errand, 


118 


GOLDENROD FARM 


and now I have come into a place where there is noth- 
ing for me to do. How could I be sent to a place 
where there was nothing for me ? ’ ’ she asked with most 
self-convincing emphasis. “ Where I am has nothing 
for itself even. It is all emptiness.’ ’ 

“ Oh no,” said Sister Deborah in her confident 
voice ; “ there must be a handful.” 

“ A handful isn’t enough to be sent to. I should 
have known I was not sent if I had known there was 
but a handful.” 

“ That is not exactly what Elijah said,” Sister Deb- 
orah replied with great seriousness ; ‘ ‘ he found only a 
handful, and a widow’s handful. A handful of meal, 
a little oil in a cruse, and the sticks for the fire she 
had to gather. Then, besides herself, she had her 
son to feed. Your emptiness can scarcely be greater 
than that.” 

“I should think that would have proved to Elijah, 
prophet though he was, that he was not sent there. I 
think that woman must have been shocked and angry 
when the strange man told her to make his cake first. 
A rough -looking man, more than selfish, with such an 
air of command.” 

“ That is where her faith came in. Her willingness 
proved that he had been sent to the right handful. 
The handful, the hungry son, and the two sticks were 
enough to frighten a man without faith out of obedi- 
ence. He was not sure that the woman gathering 
sticks was the ‘ widow woman ’ to whom he had been 
sent until he gave her a test. Would she bring him 


FAITH COTTAGE 


119 


a drink of water ? Had she refused he would have 
known that she was not the one chosen to minister to 
him. Her ready willingness came out of her heart ; 
but it was God’s sign to the prophet.” 

‘ ‘ She could not but have faith that God had spoken 
to her,” replied Elizabeth. 

“ He said to Elijah, ‘I have commanded a widow 
woman there.’ ” 

“ She had two voices,” said Elizabeth, “ God’s voice 
first, and then man’s voice. The confirmation of 
Elijah’s voice proved that God’s voice was not an illu- 
sion. You don’t know how afraid I am of illusions ; 
they are the terror of my life. I wonder if God spoke 
to this outside woman in a dream.” 

“We may believe so. He spoke to other heathen 
people in a dream. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ She did not have to act on the command in her 
dream until the prophet came to prove that God had 
spoken,” said Elizabeth with sudden enlightenment 
through her own thinking. “If I can only wait to 
learn that knowing comes before doing.” 

Sister Deborah’s mental comment ran: “You are 
the help I have been looking for, ’ ’ but when she spoke 
she said : “The handful growing and growing was an- 
other sign that God had spoken to the prophet and to 
the woman ; it was a sign fresh every day. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ But do spiritually minded Christians need signs ? ’ ’ 
questioned the girl, who had a new start in her spiritual 
life and was more afraid of illusions than of anything 
else. 


120 


GOLDENROD FARM 


‘ ‘ Whether they think they need them or not, God 
gives them every day. I think it wiser not to outgrow 
his giving. I confess I am earthly and fond of mate- 
rial things. Which would you rather have to-day, 
everything you can ask to-day, or everything God is 
willing to give to-day ? ” 

“Awhile ago I would have said everything I can 
ask.” 

‘ ‘ Is that everything you can think of for yourself, 
or everything he can think of and is willing to give 
you ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I hope the latter, ’ ’ said Elizabeth ; ‘ ‘ but I am so 
willful, and do so want to plan for myself.” 

Bister Deborah arose. 

‘ ‘ W ould you like to go over our house ? I think 
you will like it.” 

“Oh, thank you ; I wondered if I dared.” 

‘ ‘ Promise me this, ’ ’ Sister Deborah laid her hand 
upon Elizabeth’s shoulder, “that you will always dare 
with me.” 

4 ‘ I will, ’ ’ promised Elizabeth ; 4 ‘ but some day I 
may frighten you to death. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Do you remember — ’ ’ Sister Deborah stood on the 
threshold of the sunshine -and -lily room — “that once 
after Hezekiah had been sick the King of Babylon 
sent messengers to him with letters and a present to 
inquire concerning the wonder of the dial of Ahaz ? 
The king showed them all the house of his precious 
things. Then Isaiah, the prophet, was sent to him 
with a question from the Lord : AVhat have they seen 


FAITH COTTAGE 


121 


in thine house ? And because he had shown them the 
treasures of his kingdom, and had not made all the 
wonder of the goodness and greatness of the God of 
Israel first and most, punishment from God came upon 
him and his kingdom. God left him to try him that 
he might know what was in his heart. I remember 
Hezekiah, and I do not show the rooms in my small 
house until I speak some truth of God that has strength- 
ened me.” 

Awed and silent Elizabeth followed her into the 
white room. 

“ I love this room,” she said, as they stepped into 
the hall. 

“Then it shall be yours when you come for two 
weeks. A dear woman left it yesterday and Barbara 
put it in its own pretty order this morning. I will 
keep it for you. Barbara and Agnes are my helpers. 
Agnes is the little one. They have been with me five 
years. My house is five years old. Every evening at 
half-past seven we hold our prayer and praise meeting ; 
often the rooms are crowded ; they were last night. 
Summer people come from the cottages and boarding 
houses, and the village people often come ; besides, we 
sometimes have as many as seven friends staying with 
us. We have but four at present. Harry Morse is 
coming for a few days, and a lady ninety -three from 
Portland. 

“ But you do not ” How could she say to this 

stately woman in a beautiful home, “ keep boarders ” ? 

“ Oh, yes ; we do, with a difference. We are three 


122 


GOLDENROD FARM 


poor women. I own this house, but have no other 
property. When my brother’s estate is settled I shall 
have a small annuity ; he said if he gave it to me now 
I would have no more, I would give it away. Our 
friends give what they choose in return for what they 
receive. They come for rest and Bible study. Only 
those who desire to learn more of God and his truth 
especially for themselves ever come to us. We study 
together. We have his word and his promised Holy 
Spirit. We have the additional promise that he will 
lead into all truth. What human measure can test the 
richness of that ? ’ ’ 

Elizabeth was still with very gladness. 

“ Will you take lunch with us to-day ? ” she invited, 
as any hostess might ask a friend. 

“No, thank you. They say I am so adventurous 
that if I am not on time they are anxious about me. 
But I will come as soon as I can.” 

“ And bring your friend, Shar Burbank.” 

‘ ‘ I cannot be sure about her ; but I can tell her all 
you tell me.” 

Through every room Elizabeth followed Sister Deb- 
orah. They were all prettily furnished, but none was 
like the room reserved for her two weeks’ stay. What 
a walk it was homeward through the woods, and 
around by the road to the pine cottage. 

She had found Faith Cottage, and another Goldenrod 
Farm. 

“Miss Elizabeth, did you get your new piece of 
mental furniture ? ’ ’ called a voice from the piazza. 


FAITH COTTAGE 


123 


“ Who told you that?” she laughingly queried. 
“Yes, I did get it.” 

‘ ‘ I wish you would take me with you the next 
time,” replied Luke LefFerts. 

“ I will never do that,” said Elizabeth. 


CHAPTER VIII 


IN THE PINE CHAMBER 

. . . Come with all the desire of his mind unto the place 
which the Lord shall choose; then he shall minister in the 
name of the Lord his God. 

I NHERE were two windows in her pine chamber that 
looked out into all the world. Not that all the 
world was outside of them ; sometimes she believed 
that all the world was inside of them, especially when 
she was alone with herself in the pine chamber. 

The pine chamber was rude, rough in some places, 
not even planed ; there was neither paint nor plaster, 
but there was the smell of pine. One corner was cur- 
tained for a wardrobe with red calico spotted with 
black; the windows were shaded with dark green; the 
floor was uncarpeted, with the exception of the yard 
of brown and gray ingrain before the white draped 
cot ; the pillow on the cot was filled with the spicy 
balsam fir. 

There were no pictures ; all the pictures were framed 
by the window frames. There was a trunk under one 
of the windows which served for a second table ; the 
bureau and washstand and two chairs were of pine, 
stained a yellowish brown ; over the windows against 
the pine boards were boughs of balsam fir, green, fra- 
124 


IN THE PINE CHAMBER 


125 


grant ; over the bed along the wall hung in a large, 
loose half-circle the words, cut out of pale green card- 
board in pretty letters: 

“ Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.” 

In small bags of unbleached muslin twigs of fir and 
sweet fern were drying for pillows. The occupant of 
the pine chamber was a busy person. On the trunk 
which served for a table was a pile of large note-books, 
several boxes of letter paper, and a roll of silk in pale 
tints — wild roses scattered over a ground of faintest 
blue. 

Hidden by the drapery of the wardrobe stood a half- 
bushel basket crowded with rags and rag balls (she was 
helping Shar’s mother with her rag carpet). Somebody 
was a very busy person. The morning sun streamed 
through the eastern window and shone on the foot of 
the white bed and along the floor ; the shades were 
raised for the sunshine, as well as for the picture with- 
out, this August morning, for the air was chilly. The 
busy person, the girl of the pine chamber, opened the 
door of the cottage, ran up the stairs, and stood on the 
threshold of her pine chamber. 

“ Oh ! ” she exclaimed, with a note of delight. 

Her pine chamber, by night and by day, was one 
long delight. 

She stood in the doorway, a girl above medium 
height dressed in dark gray, with yellow blossoms of 
the goldenrod fastened in her belt. Her gray cap cov- 
ered hair of an ivory -brown hue ; some of the shades 
were yellow in the sunlight ; her eyes had caught the 


126 


GOLDENROD FARM 


shades of brown, they were yellow without the gleam 
of the sunshine ; and, to her sorrow, when she looked 
at herself she was freckled ; the sun had kissed her 
everywhere — forehead, cheeks, chin. The skin under 
the freckles was health -tinted ; when she smiled or 
spoke her teeth were as expressive as the lips that 
touched them — white, energetic, and gentle. Luke 
Lefferts (after the first half-hour of watching her and 
listening to her) said that her lips held a world of lov- 
ing. He said that this was the only impression he had 
of her face. 

“ But she is so freckled,’’ was the reply. 

Mr. Lefferts said he did not see any freckles. 

Still with her cap on she seated herself near her 
trunk, and took up writing materials to write her let- 
ter to Mr. Mainwaring, asking him to inquire about 
the tumble -down farm and do everything people do 
when they buy land, and please not to argue her out 
of it for she was determined, and it was not such a 
very wild thing for her to do. 

Then she opened her Bible ; she opened it at random. 
She often did this ; she knew the book so by heart and 
brain that anywhere was always somewhere. 

She read : 

“And he came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, 
which was in the seventh year of the king. For upon 
the first day of the first month began he to go up from 
Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month came 
he to Jerusalem, according to the good hand of his God 


IN THE PINE CHAMBER 


127 


upon him. For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the 
law of the Lord and to do it, and to teach in Israel 
statutes and judgments.” 

She gave another exclamation of joy ; she had found 
exactly what she wanted and all she wanted. It was 
all there, the journey and the work. 

From Babylon to Jerusalem ; from the place of cap- 
tivity to the place chosen for service. 

The preparation of heart, the seeking, the doing, the 
teaching. 

It was her own story, “ came she to Goldenrod 
Farm.” 

“ For Elizabeth had prepared her heart.” God was 
writing her story as truly as he had written this story 
of Ezra. The good hand of her God was upon her as 
upon Ezra. 

“ According to the good hand of his God.” So her 
life was planned and lived according — in accord with 
the touch of his hand, the guiding of his hand, the 
shelter of his hand. What a safe glad place to be in. 

“ None shall pluck them out of my Father’s hand,” 
Christ said. He knew about Ezra ; he knew about 
Elizabeth. 

And now there was something to do. There was al- 
ways something to do where Elizabeth stayed or where 
she strayed on the way or at the end of her journey. 
From her Babylon to her Jerusalem had been a long 
journey ; she had been years in captivity — a captivity 
to her own will, her own imagination, her own plans. 


128 


GOLDENROD FARM 


Since that hour in Faith Cottage she was no longer 
a captive ; she was free, freed from the bondage of 
herself, to do the will and work of another Master. 

Elizabeth Marsten was mastered at last. Her sisters 
had said she never would be. 

Shar’s step was on the stair, her hand upon the knob 
of the door. “Come, Shar,” she called, as she had 
called her seventeen years ago. 

Shar came in. Her hair was as yellow-red as when 
she had played with the child Elizabeth, but her feet 
were not bare to-day. Her blue housemaid’s dress was 
very becoming ; Elizabeth had chosen the dress for her 
and the style of making, and had taken many of the 
stitches herself. 

‘ ‘ A minute to spare, Shar ? ’ ’ 

“Not more than a minute. I came to tell you it is 
all right now. I have come back.” 

“You dear child ! ” Elizabeth sprang up and kissed 
her. 

“ I went to him just now when he came in from fish- 
ing. I told him it was his talk at the table that had 
unsettled my faith ; that I joined the church when I 
was thirteen, and had believed always with all my 
heart, and when he talked so every day, and every 
day, and unsettled all my foundation, I wanted to die. 
I told him how you found it out and asked me up to 
your room, and how you found the truth for me in your 
Bible ; how I came every day, when I could, and you 
studied until you found the right answer to what he 
said, and I was believing again with all my heart. I 


IN THE PINE CHAMBER 


129 


came back last night after I had been here with you, 
and not he nor any one else, unless God willed it so, 
should ever shake me again.” 

“Oh, Shar ! ” 

“ He looked at me, he looked hard at me, and said 
never a word. But I think he will never talk like 
that at our table again ; if he does I will ask Mrs. 
Marsten if I may wait in the other dining room. I 
am not strong enough to want to go through such 
arguments. I have to live my life and do right things, 
and I have to go hungry for beautiful things, and how 
could I bear it without knowing about God? If it 
had not been for you listening to it and studying the 
Bible for me I should have been in despair. For 
what is there left if you take Christ out of the world ? 5 ’ 
I studied for myself too. I trembled for myself. 
I wish I had told my cousin and had him stopped. 
But Mr. Lefferts is so kind and interesting, when he 
forgets to flaunt his unbelief in our faces, I did not 
want to hurt him. I might have stopped it. No one 
else seemed to care. They did not know how it was 
hurting you, and I did.” 

“ But you brought me back. I shall thank you in 
heaven. But I must not stay another minute. The 
dinner bell is just ready to ring.” 

“Aren’t you well to-day?” asked Elizabeth, 
noticing the paleness of her lips and the dark half- 
circles under her eyes. 

“No; I think I shall have to go home. I never 
worked so hard before. My mother will be disap- 

i 


130 


GOLDENROD FARM 


pointed, for she is counting on the money. A week of 
rest will send me back as strong as ever.” 

“ Shar, I have a plan for you. Such a place to 
rest in ! I found it to-day. I am going for two weeks 
and I will take you. The room is large enough for us 
both; another little white-and-gold bedstead can be put 
in,” she said. “Only two miles in the woods — not 
two miles in the woods, but two miles from here. You 
need it, just that. She will build you up ; and I 
shall be so glad to have you. Your mother shall have 

the money just the same ” 

‘ ‘ My sister will come to take my place ; she is 
anxious to come.” 

“ Can your mother spare you both ? ” 

“Oh, yes. There will be only father and herself. 
It would be like heaven to go somewhere with you.” 
“It is like heaven there ; it is where Faith dwells. 
I will tell my cousin that I am going away for two 
w r eeks and you must come as soon as your sister can 
come here.” 

“ I intend to go home to-night to see Alice about 
coming here. Father came to see me this morning. 
It’s queer, but it is my stepfather who has always made 
my home home to me. Mrs. Marsten likes Alice — 
young Mrs. Marsten. There has been a fuss in the 
kitchen ; ought I to tell you ? But I want to. I was 
so sorry for Mrs. Wentworth. I was there alone with 
old Mrs. Marsten and she came in. I supposed I ought 
not to leave my work, so I stayed. She said Mary was 
working too hard, she had never been brought up to 


IN THE PINE CHAMBER 


131 


keep boarders and slie couldn’t stand it ; she would 
take Mary’s place in the kitchen, she was not willing 
to eat the bread of dependence one meal longer. My ! 
how two mad old ladies can talk English. Young 
Mrs. Marsten had gone to the village or it never would 
have happened. One old lady said her son would not 
allow her to be ill-treated and the other old lady said 
her daughter would not allow her to be ill-treated. If 
it had not been so sad it would have been comical. 
One old lady looked so overheated, with her white 
hair flying and her fingers all flour, and the other 
old lady, pink and pretty, with a piece of fancy work 
in her hand.” 

“ Oh, I am so sorry,” said Elizabeth. “ Perhaps I 
can take her to Faith Cottage ; but only for two weeks. 
But I don’t believe Mrs. Wentworth wishes to go for 
Bible study. I wish I could do something.” 

‘ ‘ Do you have to do something about everything ? 
But there is the dinner bell.” 

Shar hurried down the pine stairway and Elizabeth 
brushed her hair for dinner. 

Mr. Leflerts was very quiet at the dinner table ; his 
words to the waiter were spoken in a new tone of 
courtesy. 

‘ ‘ I wonder if he has had bad news, ’ ’ remarked one 
of the guests as he abruptly left the table. 

“ He had a letter this morning,” replied Mrs. Went- 
worth, who sat next to him. 

Elizabeth and Shar looked at each other. 

That evening in the moonlight Elizabeth stood with 


132 


GOLDENROD FARM 


a group of ladies at the foot of the lawn, watching the 
high tide. 

“ I never saw it so high before,” said a voice. “ I 
like that splash ; it has more life than the gentle lapping 
we hear all along the shore.” 

Mr. Lefferts stood beside Elizabeth. He said in a 
very low tone as she stepped away from the others and 
he followed her: “ I am going aw r ay to-morrow. Next 
week I sail for Europe. It may be my good fortune to 
go to Main waring Park. May I take a message to 
your sisters ? ’ ’ 

“ Thank you. I write twice a week . 99 

“ And you cannot trust me with anything you can 
trust Uncle Sam’s mail with ? I would like to trust 
him with a letter to you once in a while ; may I ? 99 
“No.” 

“ Do you mean that you refuse to receive a letter 
from me? ” he asked with surprised indignation. 

“I mean exactly that. Good-night.” 

“Miss Elizabeth,” he began, patiently and gently. 

“I don’t see how you dare,” she burst out, “after 
Julius Wentworth and Shar Burbank. I wish you 
never to speak to me again ; you may tell my sisters 
that. ’ ’ 

He stepped back and she hurried up the lawn; the 
voices of the group at the edge of the water had cov- 
ered his words and her own. She would not tell Shar 
or Sister Deborah, not even dear Parson Hamilton. To 
think such a man had dared. She would hide her face 
in shame before the Lord when she prayed that night. 


IN THE PINE CHAMBER 


133 


She hid her face in shame, and prayed. 

When she arose from her knees, in her heart was a 
thought of kindness toward the man who had hurt 
Julius Wentworth and Shar Burbank. 

In the morning she arose early with the thought still 
in her mind. She went down the cottage stairs and 
out on the lawn ; the figure of a man was on the old 
dock. Mr. Lefierts was always out before any one else 
was astir. In her hand was a small book, bound in soft 
kid with gilt edges. 

“ Mr. Lefierts — ” with a shy confidence in his gentle- 
ness and courtesy — “ I came to say that I was rude last 
night. I meant it all then and I mean it now, but I 
might have said it differently. You may never write 
to me, but I want to give you something.” 

She laid the small book in his hand as he turned 
without a smile. 

The book was the Gospel of Luke ; she had drawn 
a line in red ink under these words : ‘ ‘ Those things 
which are most surely believed among us.” 

“ Thank you,” he said mechanically. 

“You are going to-day?” 

“ This morning.” 

“ I wish you bon voyage .” 

He lifted his hat, and she turned toward the house. 

He opened the book ; the line, like a faint streak of 
blood, arrested his eyes ; he read the words, then, with 
a muttered sentence that Elizabeth would have been 
glad not to hear, he gave the small thing a toss into 
the waters of the bay. 


CHAPTER IX 


ILLUSIONS 


How divine a thing 
A woman may be made. 


— Wordsworth. 


ND then her name was Deborah — that was part 


of her charm to Elizabeth — and she dwelt, not 
under the palm tree, but among the pine trees. 

Faith Cottage was the name it seemed to have given 
itself ; everybody knew Faith Cottage. If you followed 
the carriage road through the pines you came to the 
cottage. It was almost founded on a rock, so near the 
rocky shore w T as it builded. Upon the northeast cor- 
ner it was literally founded on a rock. 

Deborah said her steps had fallen on the seeming 
void and she had “ found the rock beneath.’ ’ Every 
step toward this house and the building had been taken 
in faith. Every step had fallen upon the rock beneath. 
She began with nothing besides faith. Her faith re- 
sulted in the house built among the pines and rocks. 

The money u came,” was “ given, ’’was “sent”; 
friends, and people who became friends, learned that 
Deborah Morse desired to build a cottage in a health - 
giving spot, where those might be taken in and helped 
who were ailing in any way, and where mental, physical, 



134 


ILLUSIONS 


135 


and spiritual blessings were to be “ had for the asking. ’ * 
In her human compassion she brought them to the Lord 
for his divine and human compassion. 

Five summers Sister Deborah had worked and prayed 
in her cottage; the winters she passed elsewhere. It was 
not a winter home excepting for those who were willing 
to spend a winter in cold, tempest, and isolation. 

From lip to lip among friends, and even among peo- 
ple who were still strangers to her home, passed stories 
of her society life, her brilliant girlhood, her connec- 
tion with the noble of the land. Some whispered that 
her only brother was a millionaire and his wife a so- 
ciety leader, that his home was open to her any hour 
of the day or night when she would give up her 
‘ ‘ ideas, ” and live and dress and enjoy life like other 
people who had her position and cultivation. 

She only smiled when these stories reached her ; she 
enjoyed life in a way of her own, as other people did 
in a way of their own. The cottage was a dainty 
home ; Sister Deborah was a dainty thing herself. 

Her summer guests paid their “ board that is 
friends and strangers who came for a day, a week, or 
two weeks, placed their offering, when they left, in a 
sandalwood box on the writing desk in Sister Deborah’s 
own apartment. No one questioned, no one discovered, 
the amount dropped by each ; Sister Deborah rarely 
knew herself. The box held the household fund. Out 
of it were taken gifts for the poor, bills and silver to 
pay the weekly accounts or for anything needed to 
make the place comfortable and attractive, the price of 


136 


GOLDENKOD FARM 


the soft black with linen cuffs and collars worn by Sis- 
ter Deborah and her co -laborers when they were not 
engaged in the coarser work of the household. When 
the sandalwood box was empty only the mistress of the 
household was aware of it ; often the others guessed it 
by her morning or evening prayer, or by the stress laid 
upon the acknowledgment of the Lord’s hand in feed- 
ing his children, in the blessing asked upon the food at 
the table. 

Sister Deborah’s eyes were never worried, her step 
never hurried, her voice was always low in rebuke or 
benediction. 

‘ 4 She reminds me of the Lord ; she is always the 
same,” said one after her third summer of two weeks’ 
sojourn. 

Sister Deborah spent hours alone in her own apart- 
ment ; she read and studied, mended the household 
linen, wrote letters, and communed with her Master. 
Many of the booklets she sent everywhere by mail and 
scattered with a free hand among her guests, were leaves 
from her own life, stories in God’s own handwriting. 
When she prayed she spoke the reverent “ thee ” and 
“thou when she talked with him she said “ you,” as 
to a familiar friend. 

Into this room no one entered uninvited. 

“Sister Deborah, you said I might ask you all the 
questions \ liked,” began Elizabeth. 

It was the second morning of her two weeks’ stay at 
Faith Cottage. They were sitting on the piazza, Sister 


ILLUSIONS 


137 


Deborah resting in the hammock and her new disciple 
on a piazza mat near the hammock. 

“Then why will you not let people, Shar and my- 
self for instance, stay here longer than two weeks? ’ ’ 

“ Because two weeks is long enough,” with a smile 
at the puzzled eyes. 

“ But why ? I am sure you will not be tired of us.” 
“It is not a personal question to me. Of you and 
Shar I would never be tired. Some of my friends take 
too much of my strength by their intensity, more than 
they have a right to take. Your room has a name on 
my list when your time is up. If you hesitate, and 
hold back, and delay, and do not take all the good 
meant for you in your two weeks, you have no right to 
hinder another.” 

4 4 But you know I am getting good with every word 
you speak, with every breath I draw ; but suppose one 

cannot do this ” 

4 4 One always can. ’ ’ 

4 4 Always get good ? ’ ’ 

4 4 Always as long as the Giver is ready to give. He 
is always ready. You can be ready if you will. Give 
yourself to him and you are ready for his blessing of 
forgiveness, of healing — spiritual, mental, physical ; it 
is his will that you should be blessed, in what measure 
only himself knows; with what truth, for what work, 
for what trial, only himself knows. I am not willing 
that any one should stay in my house indefinitely, not 
knowing whether or not she is willing to give herself to 
the Lord’s service. If they are not willing, why should 


138 


GOLDENROD FARM 


they come to my house ? I am not willing that any 
should come because her life is hard and she would 
come here to find ease. The Lord’s yoke is easy every- 
where and his burden light. If it is not it is not the 
fault of the yoke or the burden. Nobody must come 
to me instead of going to the Lord. He can answer 
prayer as well in one place as in another.” 

“ Dear Sister Deborah, then how do you know who 
may come — who is ready ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I know that as I know everything else I know. I 
ask him to send whom he will. This is his house.” 

‘ ‘ Do you ever refuse any ? ’ ’ 

“ Any whom he sends? ” with a smile. “ For suf- 
ficient reason I refused a lady this morning. The Lord 
sometimes sends them to me for the sake of the refusal; 
she needed it.” 

“ Do you mind telling me why ? ” 

“ I do not mind telling you anything. She is trust- 
ing in me rather than in the Lord.” 

“ I am afraid I shall trust in you.” 

“ Then we will both pray that you may not — in any 
wrong measure. 

Elizabeth was very happy. She wrote to Isabel 
that morning that all she was doing was “ being 
happy.” 

‘ ‘ I think our ladies will not feel it an intrusion if 
my nephew comes for a few days. He is an enthusiastic 
worker and needs rest and change. The Maine coast 
always agrees with him. Did I sj)eak to you of Harry ? 
His mother died when he was three days old and he 


ILLUSIONS 


139 


was my baby five years. Then his father married 
again — a French lady, whom he met in Paris. I did 
not stay with my new sister-in-law. My peculiar work 
began about that time. I went about in different 
places giving Bible readings and in work among the 
poor. Harry and I have not been much together — 
sometimes a summer vacation — but I have not missed 
writing one week — he has not often missed — since he 
was fifteen. He is thirty now. Harrington is a dear 
boy." 

“ Harrington. That is Parson Hamilton’s name. 
He is my saint and hero, my everything, my ideal 
father. May I tell you about him ? AVould you rather 
be thinking ? ’ ’ 

“ Is it impossible that I should be listening to you 
and be thinking ? ’ ’ 

“ Then I will tell you. My mother chose him for 
our guardian, mine especially, first, because he was a 
relative, distant, but she had known him all her life, 
and because he was so good. He has a sister, not a 
bit like himself, not a bit lovely, not at all what a 
minister’s sister should be, and his mother never leaves 
the house unless she drives, so you may understand 
that his home is not the minister’s ideal home. Noth- 
ing is ideal about him except himself. How he 
works among men and boys ! His sermons are Bible 
talks, plain, simple, strong, real ; he makes you know 
Bible people and Bible times. He never spares him- 
self ; he gives himself, his money, his time, and every 
thought ; he hasn’t any self. There is no Parson 


140 


GOLDENROD FARM 


Hamilton. Martin Luther said: ‘ Martin Luther does 
not live here, Jesus Christ lives here/ and that is as 
true of Parson Hamilton.” 

“ I hope my Harry may be like him.” 

‘ ‘ He is like him if he is the Harry Morse I was 
with one summer at Goldenrod Farm. I was fifteen 
and he was years older. He was manly with a manli- 
ness that went to a girl’s heart. His father had sent 
him to the bracing air of Maine because he had studied 
too hard. His home was in Philadelphia.” 

“ That was my Harry. I remember that summer. 
His father would not allow him to be with me because 
of my peculiar notions. He said I had spoiled him 
enough. ’ ’ 

“ Then it was vou I felt in him,” said Elizabeth 
delightedly. “ There was something fine about him, 
different from boys I knew, and I knew dozens. Mr. 
Hamilton’s church has many boys ; he lives for boys. 
But they had not, then, Harry’s cultivation. He did 
unusual things for a boy. He had a fascination for 
Shar Burbank and me; he used to take us fishing and 
rowing and tramping ; he was quite grown up to us ; 
he told us things out of his books and travels. Me 
thought he had been everywhere. One day we com- 
pared notes and I had visited seven more places than he 
had ; but he got more out of his places. ’ ’ 

“The description given by a great man of a 
good man comes to me when I think of Harry : ‘ I 
never knew a lovelier specimen of the Spirit’s workman- 
ship/ ” 


ILLUSIONS 


141 


After a silence Elizabeth said: ‘ 4 Sister Deborah, I 
think I ought to come to you to be taught about 
illusions. Illusions trouble me. I do not see clearly. 
I do not see truths ; I see illusions. If I say every- 
thing that comes into my mind, I think you will under- 
stand. I am not afraid of delusions.’ ’ 

4 4 1 understand you,” said Sister Deborah. “ There 
was a girl in Thyatira that I would like to know more 
about ; she was a girl in Lydia’s city, that Lydia 
whose heart the Lord opened. This girl was possessed 
by a spirit, a spirit the Lord hates, the spirit that sig- 
nifies prying into his hidden things, the things that are 
for us at some time but hidden until his time comes to 
reveal them to us. It is called the spirit of divination. 
She brought her master much gain by her soothsay- 
ing, so I suppose that sometimes she was allowed to 
peer into the future and see something that satisfied her 
masters. ’ ’ 

“Didn’t Samuel divine, or look into the future? 
Didn’t he foretell that Saul should be king and find 
his father’s asses? I confess that I do not see the 
difference,” argued Elizabeth. “ This girl followed 
after Paul and cried after him the truth. She said: 
‘ These men are the servants of the most high God, 
which show unto us the way of salvation.’ I never 
can understand why Paul was grieved. ITow could she 
know the truth if it were not taught her ? ’ ’ 

“ He was grieved because her witness was the wit- 
ness of the powers of evil. The devils believe and 
tremble. Their testimony concerning Christ is not 


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GOLDENROD FARM 


accepted. They do speak the truth when God con- 
strains them. This girl spoke God’s truth although 
she was under the spell of an evil spirit. In the name 
of Jesus Christ Paul cast out this spirit that divined. 
The spirit that divines and the Spirit of Christ cannot 
stay in the same heart. One must cast the other out.” 

“But,” persisted Elizabeth, “how do you know 
that the girl was not speaking out of her own conscious- 
ness and belief ? ’ 9 

“We can trust Paul to know that,” was the reply. 

“But about Samuel ? ’ ’ 

“God spoke in Samuel’s ear. We know where 
Samuel learned of the future.” 

“And some devil spoke in this girl’s ear,” said 
Elizabeth. “ Perhaps the girl did not know it was the 
devil. That is what frightens me, absolutely frightens 
me; how do I know the voice that speaks to me?” 

“ By what the voice says,” suggested Sister Deborah, 
watching the effect of her reply. 

“No, that is not an infallible way; this mocking 
voice spoke the truth. People live, and work, and 
suffer, and rejoice under illusions; die under illusions. 
I know I have had illusions, if an illusion is believing 
what is not true; but when I believed the truth 
I knew that the other was an illusion, something that 
looked so like the truth that I could not see the 
difference. The truth has to come in to cast out the 
lie.” 

‘ ‘ Do you suppose if you have any truth in you that 
God will let you go far wrong ? Even Balaam, who 
cared so little for righteous doing was brought to the 


ILLUSIONS 


143 


truth by the voice of the ass upon which he rode. If 
you will listen, God will make even the stones in the 
wrong way you are treading turn you back ; there is 
not a hindrance in your way that does not hold his 
truth. The hindrances would disillusion girls if they 
w T ould only look at them.” 

“ But — ” said Elizabeth, 4 4 and I am not talking for 
argument, I am too deadly in earnest to argue — some- 
times is it not a hindrance to test our faith ? How to 
know the difference between the ass doing his own ugly 
will to keep me back and the ass moving at the will of 
God, is what drives me frantic. I don’t see how any- 
body can know the difference.” 

“ Balaam did,” said Sister Deborah in her voice of 
assurance. 

“ After he was allowed to go on; but it will kill me 
before I get so far on.” 

“ The thing that frightens me,” Sister Deborah 
said, “is that Balaam was in earnest enough to say : 
‘ I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God to 
do less or more,’ and yet he did go beyond when he 
arose in the morning and went with the princes of 
Moab without waiting for God’s signified permission, 

4 If the men come to call thee. ’ And he arose in the 
morning and went, not waiting for God’s will to be 
made known in the sign. God afterward said, ‘ Go 
with the men.’ Why could he not have waited for the 
men to come to him ? ’ ’ 

“For the same reason that I rush ahead and don’t 
wait,” said Elizabeth in grim self-reproach. 

‘ ‘ Balaam did not wait for it to be a clear case of 


144 


GOLDENROD FARM 


direction like Peter going with the men sent by Corne- 
lius to escort him. The Spirit said to Peter: “ Behold 
three men seek thee ; arise, therefore, and get thee down 
and go with them. ’ Peter’s way was the ideal way ; 
the only perfect way. All we have to do is to wait, 
dear child. While we wait the mist of our self-will 
clears away.” 

‘ ‘ I wonder why Balaam did not wait, ’ ’ reflected the 
girl who was learning to wait. 4 ‘ The word of the 
Lord was so clear, so easy to follow.” 

“ While Peter thought on the vision the Spirit told 
him the men were at his gate. I do not believe 
Balaam thought much on the vision. He was too full 
of himself.” 

“I suppose he was too full of going,” said Eliza- 
beth, to whom “ going ” was her very breath. 

‘ ‘ Peter doubted in himself what the vision should 
mean; he did not doubt God; he doubted only the 
meaning of the vision. And he thought on it. God 
did not ask him to do anything until he sent the three 
men to knock at his gate. Then he gave him a com- 
mand. There was no illusion about that. 4 My sheep 
hear my voice.’ ” 

‘ ‘ If it is given in answer to prayer, how can it be 
an illusion ? ’ ’ Elizabeth demanded impatiently. 

“ In the first place you must know that it is given 
in answer to prayer,” was Sister Deborah’s reply. 

‘ ‘ How can I help knowing if it comes, after I have 
prayed for it to come ? ’ ’ Elizabeth urged, still impa- 
tient. 


ILLUSIONS 


145 


‘ ‘ If what comes ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ The something I have prayed for and believe to 
be my answer. It is either truth or an illusion, the 
appearance of truth. I do not see ” — hurt as well as 
impatient — “ how God can permit an illusion. I know 
I wouldn’t to anybody.” 

‘ ‘ There are illusions in nature ; you love to believe 
that nature is true. The child believes the illusion 
real; she might even think the shining dewdrop was 
the diamond lost out of her mother’s ring. Suppose 
this: The mother has lost her diamond; the child begins 
the hunt for it with a prayer to find it ; darts after a 
dewdrop to find her diamond a drop of shining water — 
what then ? ’ ’ 

“ I should be sorry and hurt for the child.” 

“And you would think God might better never 
make a dewdrop than to have this little thing dis- 
appointed. What would you say to the child that ran 
sobbing to you ? ’ ’ 

“ The common-sense way would be to tell her that it 
was a good thing to learn that a dewdrop was not a 
diamond and to try again.” 

“ But about the illusions ? ” 

“Oh,” said Elizabeth with a tinge of bitterness, 
‘ ‘ that the world was full of illusions and if she would 
keep her heart from breaking she must get used to 
them.” 

4 4 Then I would be sorry and wish the child had gone 
to a better comforter,” replied Sister Deborah. 

“ To you,” said Elizabeth smiling. 

K 


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GOLDENROD FARM 


‘ 4 I would say the search for the diamond had led 
her to another of God’s beautiful things. It was beauti- 
ful to know about dewdrops; that was on the way to 
the diamond.” 

4 4 That’s happy, if it is true,” Elizabeth half sighed. 

4 4 It is true to the child who can accept it, ’ ’ said Sis- 
ter Deborah. 

4 4 Did you ever think you saw a person standing in 
a certain place, see him with your eyes, do everything 
but touch him, go up to him to find him not there, 
to find nobody there, and have it proved to your 
perfect satisfaction that he was not within your vision 
at the time ? That happened to me once. I called to 
him to wait for me, and then, as he did not answer 
I called out: 4 You mean thing; go on then.’ ” 

44 No ; I never had an experience like that.” 

44 I am glad I had it for it makes my point. Now 
suppose I had prayed for that person to be in that cer- 
tain place at that certain time, would I not have every 
reason to believe that he was the true person, and not 
an imaginary one, whether he answered me or not ? ’ ’ 

4 4 Knowing nothing of the case but as you state it, I 
should decide that you certainly have sufficient evidence 
to believe it. ’ ’ 

44 But, I call and he does not answer. Now what 
must I believe ? ’ ’ 

44 You may believe, if you wish, that the answering 
was not a part of God’s answer to you. The presence 
was all you asked. Did you ask for a voice as well as 
a presence? ” said Sister Deborah. 


ILLUSIONS 


147 


“ No,” astonished and convinced, “ I did not think 
to ask for the voice ; I was satisfied with the presence. * ’ 
‘ ‘ And because the voice was not given also, you are 
willing to face God and say the answer to your prayer 
was an illusion. IV hat a natural human child of the 
Father you are, Elizabeth.” 

“ I hope he doesn’t mind because I’m natural and 
human.” 

“Oh, no ; he began you in that way. But you 
don’t have to finish yourself in that way. Do you 
know where your illusion is ? ” 

“ No ; it is all illusion — or was, a moment ago.” 
“God’s answers have always a spiritual meaning. 
An answer without spirit is not worth his giving. His 
answer is longer than your prayer. You cannot catch 
it in one breath, as you can pray your prayer in one 
breath.” 

“ What is it without any illusion ? ” 

“Without any illusion it is what the dewdrop was 
to the child. It is the step by step of true things. 
God’s answers are real ; as real as the dewdrop w r as. 
The dewdrop held the spirit of the diamond. If you 
get that spirit you go on and on to the perfect end. 
Perhaps that man who went down from Jerusalem to 
Jericho, who was stripped and wounded and left half 
dead, prayed for help with all the life he had left in 
him. When the priest came he might have thought 
his prayer was answered ; and surely, when the Levite 
came, for he came nearer and looked at him. What 
mocking it might have seemed to him for the priest and 


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GOLDENROD FARM 


Levite to come so near and never touch him. And in 
the priest and Levite he had a right to look for help. 
It must have been a very bitter disappointment — as 
if God himself had failed. Perhaps he began to give 
thanks when he saw the Levite come so near. And 
then they passed by on the other side — as illusions do.” 

“ If they come to stay, is that a proof that they are 
no illusions ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Do you remember before Christ came, ’ ’ Sister 
Deborah said, after a silent, prayerful moment, 4 4 that 
Theudas arose, and four hundred people believed in 
him ; they were slain, scattered, and brought to naught. 
Then after him came Judas of Galilee ; he drew away 
much people ; all who obeyed him were destroyed. 
Gamaliel uses these illusions to prove that if the dis- 
ciples of Jesus Christ were brought to naught it would 
prove their Master was false like Judas and Theudas. 
The disciples of Christ were despised and slain, but in 
spite of all, not brought to naught. GamaliePs argu- 
ment proves to-day that the others were false and 
Christ real. Then followed this confirmation : ‘ And, 
daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased 
not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.’ Everywhere 
and every day the truth was proven. Everywhere and 
every day your answer will be proven true or false. 
Would you like to choose which book of the Bible to 
read with me during your stay ? Each of my guests 
reads alone with me some book of the Bible — or por- 
tion of some book. Shall I choose for you ? ’ 9 

‘ ‘No, please,” said Elizabeth frankly; “I would 


ILLUSIONS 


149 


rather choose for myself. I would like Acts. That 
is so full of God speaking to people and telling them 
what to do.” 

“Well, then, from nine to ten every morning shall 
be your hour, unless we are hindered. Read by your- 
self, and get all you can for yourself, first. ’ ’ 

4 ‘ I always do that, ’ ’ replied Elizabeth ; “I never 
ask a question of any one until I have asked it of 
myself first. You do not know how it rests and 
strengthens me to work with somebody ; my sisters 
never cared for Bible study ; I am not even sure that 
they read the Bible — only Isabel, I know she does. 
But she doesn’t read it in my way. I do not do any- 
thing in her way, and she does not do anything in mine. 
I do not like to say it even to you, because I admire 
her so, but she is only a skin-deep Christian. She 
says we do not have to be like the early Christians in 
these later days, and I have had to strugggle against 
her influence. At first I loved what she loves, 
society and admiration, and I was in the thick of it 
when Mark Benson stopped me with his life ; not so 
much with what he said, as his straight-ahead, coura- 
geous life ; he saw clearly ; he had no illusions. He said 
he would be a through -and -through Christian or none 
at all. It was his Uncle Mark who helped him and 
Parson Hamilton. Since Mark went away I have had 
to fight the girls, and Isabel hardest of all, because 
she is a Christian. My life at home has not been all 
peace. When laughing at me failed, they scolded me. 
Once I gave up and did the things that pleased them. 


150 


GOLDENROD FARM 


That was the year before I was engaged. I read the 
lightest novels, and went to the theatre and opera and 
all their parties, and dressed in the very latest style, 
and flirted with all my heart ; when Isabel heard two 
young men speak of me as 4 Miss Dash ’ she was 
frightened into cautioning me. We went everywhere 
that summer and winter and I supposed I enjoyed it. 
Isabel said I was a ‘ success ’ and she was sure that I 
would never return to my nunlike ways and studies. 
But I did. I couldn’t stand it. I was homesick for 
something better. How Parson Hamilton watched 
over me and wrote to me. And Mark, he loved me 
and disapproved of me. And I came back, and here 
I am.” 

‘ ‘ And here you are, ’ ’ said Sister Deborah with a 
silent, “Thank God.” 

“I know,” began Elizabeth in her self-convinced 
tone, ‘ 4 that the strongest reason they had for urging 
me to go with them to Europe was that I might give 
up my notions. They thought Parson Hamilton and 
Mary Mainwaring were spoiling my life, making me a 
nun. Mark had begun to spoil me — they have never for- 
given him for loving me — and they thought sight- 
seeing was better for me than Bible reading. I think 
they would like me to make a fine marriage — especially 
Isabel, she is ambitious for me. I do not know why I 
resisted their entreaties ; I was homesick for Isabel for 
days, and Jessica. Cynthia and Martha do not love 
me very much, with any demonstrative affection, of 
course ; I know they love me better than I deserve. If 


ILLUSIONS 


151 


there is anything real in life I must have it. I must 
be a ‘ most -surely -believer ’ or none ; I heard a minister 
say that and it went through me. I decided to be 
that or a society girl. I told Isabel, and them all. 
They looked at each other and then at me — all four of 
them. And I laughed to keep from crying. When I 
am a most -surely -believer I’ll go all over the world 
with them, for nothing can draw me away.” 


CHAPTER X 


HARRY MORSE 

Said Christ, our Lord : “ I will go and see 
How the men, my brethren, believe in me.” 

— Lowell . 

T HE young man turned the key in the lock of his 
door, pushed the door open, and stepped within 
the room. 

The flash of the gaslight revealed a spacious room, 
square, high, handsomely furnished. 

He had taken his dinner down -town and walked 
home for the exercise ; for the change of exercise, he 
would say, as he had been moving about all day in 
noisome alleys, up narrow stairways, in unlighted 
rooms where sick mothers lay and weakly babies 
crawled ; besides, there had been an accident, and he 
had sat and prayed beside two deathbeds. 

It was not an unusual day’s work, but the bad air 
had been more stifling than usual, and he was over- 
wrought ; it was well to acknowledge it to himself. 
Faith Cottage was tempting beyond expression— the 
air, the sky, the odor of the pines and the companion- 
ship of the person he had loved best since babyhood. 

He looked tall as he stood in the center of the high- 
ceiled room, with muscular development rather than 
flesh, lithe, graceful, with the grace of unconscious- 
152 


HARRY MORSE 


153 


ness of self, with beard and moustache of reddish 
yellow ; his eyes, in thought, shone deeply blue ; the 
plain, rugged face was a good face. St. John wrote to 
Harry Morse when he wrote: “I write unto you, 
young men, because ye are strong.” His sitting room 
opened into his bedroom, a room of equal size. These 
two rooms and his down -town office were all the home 
he had. His business was medical and philanthropic 
work among the poor of the city of New York, taking 
no fee except when a fee was the best thing he could 
do for the self-respect of his patient. He did no night 
work, unless especially engaged ; his office was on the 
first floor of a tenement house. 

Within the year his father had died, leaving him a 
modest fortune. He had no need to work for himself ; 
he had leisure from himself to work for his fellow-men. 

His life was simple ; he must have a home large 
enough to breathe in, in a breathing part of the city, a 
new book, a new picture once in a while, and a journey 
whenever he needed rest and change. 

His stepmother had never become interested in 
her husband’s only child. She had no children of 
her own to become interested in, and she had returned 
to her relatives in France. Besides his father’s only 
sister he had knowledge of neither kith nor kin. In 
five days he would be thirty years old, and he had 
promised to spend his birthday with his Aunt Deborah 
Morse, at her cottage on the coast of Maine. Having 
no companion and nothing more alive than the clock on 
the mantel, he betook himself to himself for a medita- 


154 


GOLDENROD FARM 


tive hour, and then opened a fresh medical magazine 
and read till midnight. 

One morning at the breakfast table — it was the first 
morning Harry Morse was with them — Elizabeth noticed 
a shade of sadness in Sister Deborah’s eyes ; it was 
deeper than thoughtfulness ; it was sad thinking. 

“ Sister Deborah,” she began impulsively, “I did 
not know you could ever be sad.” 

‘ 1 Do you know it now ? ’ ’ 

“ Yes, just now.” 

“ Perhaps I should not be sad. Only something 
happened in the night to disturb me, a dream.” 

“Now, Aunt Deborah, you don’t believe in dreams 
now-a-nights,” teased her nephew. 

“ I believe I dreamed. Some one whom I have not 
seen, scarcely remembered, for many years, stood before 
me and spoke to me. It reminded me of a wrong that I 
did in my thoughtless youth. AVe have a right to be 
sad over wrong-doing, have we not? ” 

“ But it was queer that you should think of it in a 
dream,” said Shar ; “ my dreams are silly dreams.” 
“Not queer when I pray that my sleeping thoughts 
may be given and governed even as my waking thoughts 
are. There is no difference to Him, who is always 
thinking of us, between night and day. He could 
have brought my wrong-doing before me in a waking 
hour as well as in a sleeping hour. I do not question 
his time. I wish to recognize his presence and voice, 
whether I am asleej^ or awake.” 

“ AVhat shall you do about it ? ” asked Elizabeth. 


HARRY MORSE 


155 


“ What I always do when a sin of thoughtlessness or 
ignorance is brought to my consciousness. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Then you have no right to your sadness, ’ ’ said 
Harry. 

“ Not another moment/’ she returned, smiling. 

‘ ‘ May I pass you the blueberry cake? You have not 
told me about your work this summer. ’ ’ 

“ Or about my play either ; I have had enough of 
both.” 

“ Mr. Morse, you have been in Venice, ” Shar broke 
out, “the Venice of my delight.” 

“Oh, yes,” he said; “and I was like the young 
man who sat in a gondola on the Grand Canal, drink- 
ing it all in, and life never seemed so full before.” 
Sister Deborah’s laugh was as merry as the merriest 
at the table. The charm of her personality to Eliza- 
beth was the bubbling up of the joyousness of her 
nature ; her nonsense was as light-hearted as a girl’s. 

“ Aunt Deborah, your night experience reminds me 
of Emerson. He said, ‘ These hints, dropped as it were 
from sleep and night, let us use in broad day.’ ” 

Shar had a thought as she sat alone on Harry Morse’s 
birthday, in the small kitchen at Faith Cottage. It 
began with the square of sunshine on the oilcloth of 
the kitchen floor ; in the sunshine, how the yellow and 
black and blue of the pattern brightened. The same 
yellow and black and blue were in the pattern that 
along the wall and under the table was sombre ; in the 
square of sunshine even the black was a brightened 
black, a shining black. 


156 


GOLDENROD FARM 


She moved her chair and sat in the sunshine to 
brighten herself and the pan of apples she was peeling 
and slicing for pies. 

That square of sunshine was like Sister Deborah’s 
Bible ; she read an illuminated Bible. Shar had said 
to Sister Deborah that she had no money to drop into 
the sandalwood box when she went away. She would 
like to give service every day in the kitchen, the dining 
room, the chambers. 

“Your service will be very precious to me,” Sister 
Deborah replied. 

The service was very precious to Shar. 

4 4 Do anything you will, 5 ’ Barbara and Agnes both 
told her. 44 It is a free-will offering.” 

There was no 4 4 servant ’ ’ in the cottage ; they were 
all helpers. Once Sister Deborah was asked if she 
kept servants ; she replied, 44 We are all servants.” 

As Shar peeled her apples, Harry Morse and Eliza- 
beth came up the wooden steps that led to the edge of 
the water. They were boy and girl again. 

4 4 Shar,” said Elizabeth, coming to the kitchen door 
with a handful of green things, as usual, 4 4 Mr. Morse 
has been telling me about his work in New York.” 

44 1 wish he would tell me,” Shar replied. 

44 1 will with pleasure,” spoke a voice behind Eliza- 
beth ; 44 it is about two or three little crippled children 
that Miss Elizabeth has been breaking her heart over. ’ ’ 
44 Then I mustn’t tell you a sad thing I heard last 
week,” said Shar, cutting thinnest slices into a deep 
yellow dish. 44 A poor man, he works out by day and 


HARRY MORSE 


157 


has three small children, last week had a little girl born 
without arms.” 

“ Oh, dear ! ” exclaimed Elizabeth, “ and the world 
is hard enough for little girls with arms. What will 
they do ? ’ 9 

“ I know what I would like to do,” said Shar. ‘ ‘I’d 
like to adopt her. I like babies and dogs and horses 
and helpless things. I wish I could.” 

‘ ‘ I suppose her mother loves her, ’ 9 reminded Harry 
Morse, who was in daily contact with mothers. 

“ Yes ; but the more she loves her the more it hurts. 
I know the mother. She is a good mother ; just the 
mother for such a baby.” 

“ Miss Shar, what do you think w T e have been doing, 
besides rowing and climbing and talking endlessly? ” 

“ Isn’t that almost enough? ” inquired Shar. 

“ We never have enough. Miss Elizabeth has been 
teaching me a poem about the daffodils. She thinks 
Wordsworth loved them as she loves her goldenrod.” 

“And then my heart with pleasure fills 
And dances with the daffodils,” 

quoted Elizabeth, pressing a bunch of pennyroyal be- 
hind one of the white sash curtains of the window. 

She passed through the kitchen and went upstairs to 
her own room, leaving Harry Morse to Shar and her 
pan of apples. He would have something better than 
daffodils with Shar, if she were not covered with shy- 
ness. 

Shar studied. She said she was “ keeping up ” for 
something that was coming to her. 


158 


GOLDENROD FARM 


Elizabeth was dissatisfied with herself. She had said 
to the young doctor that morning that he was 4 ‘ not 
ambitious enough.’ ’ With his education and oppor- 
tunities he was hiding himself in the slums ; was it not 
meant that a man should make the most of himself? ” 

She remembered Professor Burbank ; he would be- 
come a man for some one who loved him to be proud 
of. All her life she had wanted to belong to somebody 
whom she was proud of ; as good as Parson Hamilton 
and greater. 

“ I want to make something of other people,” Harry 
Morse had replied. 

As the girl peeling apples was shy and kept her eyes 
upon her apples, and he did not wish to leave her ab- 
ruptly, he told her a Russian legend, suggested by a 
remark of her own something like that of Elizabeth’s 
in the boat, that he was not ‘ ‘ ambitious. ’ ’ She too 
was thinking of Maurice Burbank. 

“St. Cassian and St. Nicholas appeared before the 
Lord one day, Cassian in pure garments and Nicholas 
torn and mud -besmeared. 

“ ‘ What hast thou seen on earth ? ’ the Lord inquired 
of St. Cassian. 

“ ‘ I saw a peasant with his cart upset, floundering in 
the ditch by the roadside.’ 

“ ‘ Why didst thou not help him ? ’ asked the Lord. 

‘ ‘ ‘ Because I was coming into thy presence and 
feared to soil my bright dress. ’ 

“ Then the Lord turned to Nicholas and asked him 
why he came into his presence filthy and begrimed. 


HARRY MORSE 


159 


‘ ‘ ‘ Because I saw a peasant in the ditch and helped 
him out/ 

‘ 4 Then the Lord said to Cassian : ‘ Because thou hast 
cared so much about thy dress and so little about thy 
brother, I will give thee a name’s day but once in four 
years ; but thou, Nicholas, because thou didst care 
more for thy brother than for thy dress, shalt have a 
name’s day four times in every year.’ ” 

Shar looked up and smiled and was shy no longer. 

“ You find children everywhere ? ” 

“ From top to bottom of the tenement houses, at door- 
ways, in the windows, in the narrow halls ; they are 
not country children, they are dirty city children, not 
the kind you love naturally. One must love childhood 
as well as children to ‘ mother ’ the children I see every 
day. In some places most of the mothers are at work 
in the courtyard ; they are the support of the family ; 
they wash with the water from the hydrant. It is 
pitiful to see the hands stretched out for excursion 
tickets — rest and change for only a day. Some hall- 
ways are without light or air, and the light in their 
rooms at midday is often but twilight.” 

Shar looked out the doorway, across the green, across 
the water to the island, all greenness, sky, freshness, pur- 
ity, sunshine. God was there too, in that place where 
the swarms of children were, and mothers who worked 
for their children, and children who loved their mothers. 

“ Oh, dear ! ” she sighed ; and then she asked, “ How 
can you bear it ? ” 

“ I do not have to bear it,” he said. 


CHAPTER XI 


ON BOTH SIDES OF THE SEA 

The lark flew up in the morning bright, 

And sang and balanced on sunny wings ; 

And this was its song : “I see the light, 

Hook o’er the world of beautiful things; 

But flying and singing everywhere, 

In vain I have searched to find the air. ” 

O N the table in her own room Elizabeth found the 
morning mail ; letters from Parson Hamilton, 
Mary Mainwaring, and one from each of her sisters, 
with a large package of photographs of Mainwaring 
Park. Jessica's letter consisted of three thin sheets of 
description of her beautiful English home. 

“The land is divided into three parts,” she wrote, 
“ the park, the farm, the stables. The house is of the 
type of Hampton Court with French touches every- 
where. The terraces are marvelous things ; the upper 
terrace is paved with tiles ; the lower terrace ends in a 
summer house ; stone steps lead from the lower to the 
upper terrace. The stone porches of the house are 
elegant ; the columns on the front rise above the second 
story. Bedrooms and sitting rooms fill the second 
floor. I wish you could see our rooms. Many of the 
rooms are finished with white enamel with mahogany 
doors. From our windows we see a hollow covered on 


160 


ON BOTH SIDES OF THE SEA 


161 


all sides with shrubs of brilliant hues. The five green- 
houses hold everything that eye can crave to see ; there 
is also a fern house and a palm house ; there are also 
houses for peaches, grapes, and strawberries. Elegance, 
luxury, everything I ever wanted ! ” 

She looked over the half-dozen photographs, then 
laid them aside to read Isabel’s letter. She w T ould 
send a snapshot of Faith Cottage to Mainwaring 
Park. The girls never replied to her enthusiasm about 
Sister Deborah. 

Isabel’s letter was the longest of the four ; she filled 
a sheet daily. She wrote of them all as she would 
talk of them all at home ; her sisterly solicitude for 
Martha’s health, her anxiety for Cynthia’s peace of 
mind, her joy in Jessica’s happiness with her English 
relatives. 

“ Martha finds great enjoyment in everything. The 
colors of life were fading for her, but they appear to 
be taking on new tints. She proposed this morning 
that we start immediately for our tour on the continent, 
having lingered here, she fears, beyond the patience of 
our friends. They have urged us so sincerely that we 
could scarcely leave before without rudeness. Jessica 
is her lovely, winning, sunshiny self. Her English 
relatives love her dearly. She will stay at Mainwaring 
Park. 

“ Cynthia, poor Cynthia, is not a bit happy. She has 
a letter every week and oftener from Julius Wentworth. 
To make her happy I shall consent if she ever asks me, 
or tells me — but I hope and pray it is not that that 

L 


162 


GOLDENKOD FARM 


will make her happy. What she can see in him, be- 
sides his 4 manner ’ and his music, is beyond me. I 
am very happy because you are so happy, my little 
girl. When I come home I will tell you of some one 
I knew when you were a midget. He is a shadow of 
his old self. Now, don’t make a story about your old 
sister, you romantic child ; he is but a shadow to me. I 
look at him and wonder how I ever had patience with 
him enough to be the good friends we were. His 
wife is dead, and he has no child. But don’t let my 
experience take the bloom off the peach for you ; some 
women love so well and so worthily that it is a blessing 
all life through. But, hear me, prosing about romances. 
We had a pleasant surjmse in Professor Burbank. 
Harold Mainwaring met him in California at the time 
he came to America ; he found him in London the 
other day and brought him to Mainwaring Park for a 
week. He appears to know you well. Why did you 
never tell us of him beyond that Shar had a cousin 
who was literary and ambitious? I imagined a clod- 
hopper with literary tastes, and Maurice Burbank is the 
handsomest man I ever saw, as easy at Mainwaring 
Park as any born Mainwaring ; talks sense and nonsense 
with equal grace. He is on the way to a year, or two, 
or three, of study in Germany. He talked about you 
one day at dinner, sitting next to me ; he even spoke 
of you as 4 Elizabeth.’ We expect to meet him again 
in Germany. Julius Wentworth has written that Mr. 
Lefferts will be over this summer ; it will be good to 
see him. As you know, he was always one of my admira- 


ON BOTH SIDES OF THE SEA 


163 


tions ; not sound and orthodox perhaps, but men’s 
minds are different from women’s — they do not believe 
so easily ; but I can believe that he is on the way to 
belief. His unbelief has always seemed to me so 
honest. But I think you have never appreciated him ; 
he was not in your ‘ set. ’ Martha and I met him a 
great deal, as you know. ’ ’ 

Elizabeth refolded the English letters with a half- 
sigh. What was the matter with her that she was 
not satisfied with Isabel? She knew Isabel would 
not be satisfied with her life and would be indignant at 
her rudeness to Mr. Lefferts. Why could not sisters 
think alike ? W as her own life too narrow ? W ould 
she grow wider at Mainwaring Park ? Was her sum- 
mer a mistake ? She would like the travel on the con- 
tinent and could go to them now. She now had the 
experiment of her summer. Alone ? Why not alone ? 
In this mood she opened the letter of Parson Hamilton. 
That was her benediction. She saw that she was in 
the right place : Faith Cottage first, then she would 

be ready for Mainwaring Park and all the world. 
There was a breath about the house — was it the breath 
of the Holy Spirit ? Christ breathed on his disciples. 
He wrote that he had work for her on her return, 
work that she was being prepared for, a class in 
Sunday-school, of girls from fifteen to twenty. Those 
five years had been growing years to her ; what had 
she garnered for these girls ? 

“ Elizabeth, don’t sit there and think yourself into a 
kink,” called Sister Deborah through the open door. 


164 


GOLDENROD FARM 


‘ ‘ I am in a kink now , 5 ’ said Elizabeth rising and 
going to her, with the energy with which she despised 
herself ; ‘ ‘ the present one is that it is selfish for me to 
pray for myself. And I want to pray for myself. I 
haven’t prayed for myself for three days,” she ended, 
with a comical inflection. 

“ What a starving time you must have had ! ” 

“ I have. I am starved.” 

“ Once,” began Sister Deborah, with strength in the 
reminiscent word, “ I had been praying with my whole 
self for a certain something. Before the answer came I 
asked another blessing, that I might be shown an 
answered prayer to comfort me. Thus pleading, I 
opened the book of the record of the prayers of God’s 
people, and what a one I found ! one of Paul’s prayers. 
He dared beseech the brethren to strive with him in 
prayer for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake and the love of 
the Spirit and for his own sake. And what for, do 
you think ? For himself. They were to strive in 
prayer for him.” 

“For what kind of things? ” questioned Elizabeth, 
with the joy of it in her face. 

“For three blessings. The very same you may ask 
for yourself, and ask me to strive with you in, for an 
answer of peace. That he might be delivered from them 
that did not believe.” 

“Yes,” was her fervent response. She had never 
thought that she might pray for like deliverance. 

“ That the service he had for Jerusalem might be 
accepted of the saints. ’ ’ 


ON BOTH SIDES OF THE SEA 


165 


“Dear me,” was her ejaculation, “delivered from 
sinners and accepted of saints.” 

“ And then, that he might come unto them with joy 
by the will of God, and by them be refreshed. His 
deliverance, his service, and his refreshment. And 
Paul was not a very selfish man. ’ ’ 

The two laughed together in the joy of their hearts. 
Elizabeth had found somebody to laugh with her. 
That evening a letter from Mr. Mainwaring stated 
that the property she desired to purchase might be had 
on easy terms ; he would make the necessary arrange- 
ments and she might come to town any day to finish up 
the business. It was like her to start on the morning 
train. Harry Morse offered himself as her knight, 
saying that he would like to “do” the Forest City, 
and he might not have another opportunity. 

After the transfer of the property, which took but a 
few legal moments, Elizabeth invited her knight to visit 
her great-grandfather’s house, and to see the most 
precious thing in it, great-grandmother’s portrait. It 
was strange, she happened to think that day, that the 
face of her mother had never taken hold on her imagi- 
nation ; but then, she had Isabel for a mother, she ex- 
plained to herself. Then they called on Mary Mainwar- 
ing and Parson Hamilton. She left him with Parson 
Hamilton to “ do ” the city and to spend the night. 

It was lonely at home without her sisters ; the spa- 
cious old place was empty and darkened. The house- 
keeper’s own rooms were the only parts of the house 
kept open and alive, besides the kitchen. 


166 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“I will stay with Miss Mainwaring to-night/ ’ she 
said to Mrs. Hinchley ; “ and to-morrow Hinchley will 
drive us back to Goldenrod Farm.” 

The drive the next day revived the memories of her 
childhood. In all the world to her, there was nothing 
like this drive to Goldenrod Farm. Parson Hamilton 
and Mary Wainwaring she insisted upon taking to 
view and approve her own acre of goldenrod. Mary 
flushed like the pinkest wild rose and murmured that 
it would be too great a pleasure. 

“ And you must both see Faith Cottage and my 
blessed Sister Deborah. Goldenrod Farm will take 
you for two or three days. My room in the cottage is 
ready for you, Miss Mary, and Parson Hamilton can 
roost in a tree.” 

“Elizabeth, Elizabeth, what will you do next?” 
murmured the happy Miss Mary. 

Elizabeth knew, if she was not hindered. She had 
guessed something. She had guessed that Sister De- 
borah and the girl that she herself was like, were one 
and the same. She had found Parson Hamilton’s girl 
friend, and she was not a ‘ ‘ serious grandmother ’ ’ ; she 
was a beautiful, stately, happy woman, her life as pur- 
poseful in good as Parson Hamilton’s own. 

Would they recognize each other ? W ould they 
dare ? But she would dare. She would dare anything. 

It happened that a telegram came instead of a vis- 
itor to Faith Cottage, and a guest was summoned home, 
so that two of the pretty rooms were unexpectedly 
ready for the two people who should be “sent ” next, 


ON BOTH SIDES OF THE SEA 


167 


and so it fell out that Mary Main waring did not sleep in 
the pine cottage nor Parson Hamilton robst in a tree. 

Sister Deborah took frail Mary Mainwaring to her 
heart as Elizabeth knew she would, and Parson Hamil- 
ton, shy, courteous, genial, was recognized after a few 
moments’ conversation as an old friend. 

“ You are certainly the Harry Hamilton I knew in 
my girlhood. I felt as if I were remembering a dream — 
and now I know I am awake.” She arose and gave 
him her hand with a second welcome. 

At that moment Elizabeth slipped away. She 
thought she would like to know the instant they recog- 
nized each other. But neither told except to each 
other. 

It was certainly betraying no confidence to say to 
Harry Hamilton Morse that her Parson Hamilton and 
his Aunt Deborah remembered that they had known 
each other ages ago, before he and she were born. 

4 ‘ How pretty and touching it was ! ’ ’ remarked Mary 
Mainwaring afterward to Elizabeth. ‘ ‘ They talked over 
old times and made their youth together so vivid. Now 
they are old together. ’ ’ 

Then Mary Mainwaring said, and wondered at her- 
self for saying it, ‘ ‘ They remind me of a poem I have 
loved a long time : 

“The best is yet to be, 

The last of life from which the first was made ; 

Our times are in his hand 
Who saith : ‘ A whole I planned, 

Youth shows but half ; trust God ; see all, nor be afraid.’ ” 


168 


GOLDENROD FARM 


‘ ‘ Oh, dear, ’ ’ replied Elizabeth, * ‘ and I have been 
thinking that jfouth was all.” 

Sister Deborah asked Parson Hamilton to lead their 
little meeting that evening. The two rooms were 
crowded. Elizabeth and Shar sat behind the others. 

All the hour Elizabeth saw but one picture : the two 
who held the pulse of the gathering in their hand. 
They sat on opposite sides of a small, round table. On 
the table stood a brass lamp with a white shade, a tall 
vase filled with sweet peas, and Sister Deborah’s much- 
marked Bible. 

Parson Hamilton held her Bible in his hand while he 
talked. Her white head was slightly bent, her face 
half toward him. There were but two gentlemen in 
the small audience, “ Joe” Cummings, who had come 
to bring his sister, and Harry Morse. 

In her every-day tone, as natural as though she 
stood at her ironing board, Miss Cummings asked 
Parson Hamilton : 4 ‘ I am looking forward to the time 
when God’s will will be made plain to me about things 
— real common things ; do you suppose he will tell 
me ? ” 

Parson Hamilton’s kindly eyes rested upon the thin, 
dark face of a woman in the corner : “ God’s will is 
not something he will some day make plain to you ; it 
is something he is making plain to you to-day. Your 
question signifies that you want to know the end. The 
end has not come yet. It could not be the end without „ 
beginning and middle. You know the beginning if 
you know your work to-day.” 


ON BOTH SIDES OF THE SEA 


169 


“But that doesn’t help to-morrow,” she insisted. 
“ I am in the dark about a heap of things.” 

“ To-day is the only help to-morrow has; if there 
were no to-day there would be nothing for to-morrow. 
To-day is enough for any one of us. To-morrow is 
God’s secret.” 

“I thought seers and prophets could tell about to- 
morrow,” she persisted. 

“ They can tell what God reveals to them.” 

“ That is just what I mean, and I want a seer to tell 
me about to-morrow.” 

Sister Deborah laughed, a soft little laugh. 

“I do not know of anything better than to be so 
busy to-day that we shall forget to-morrow,” she said. 

“ Folks are always busy enough with this and that, 
here and there,” murmured Miss Cummings. 

i ‘ 1 would like to say this, ’ ’ said a lady sitting next 
to Elizabeth, a lady who was staying in the house ; “I 
see only middle-aged people here — with two excep- 
tions,” looking at Shar and Elizabeth, “and I don’t 
see why girls don’t think about these things. My 
girls don’t think. They will not even go to Sunday- 
school.” 

“To know that girls do think is easily learned,” 
said Parson Hamilton ; “ come into my Sunday-school 
and I will show you one hundred girls, from ten to 
twenty-five, who think. And I remember Elizabeth 
Fry who said : ‘ Since my heart was touched at seven- 
teen years old I believe that I have never awakened 
from sleep, in sickness or in health, by day or by night, 


170 


GOLDENROD FARM 


without my first waking thought being how I might 
serve my Lord. ’ 99 

“ Girls are not Elizabeth Frys now-a-days, ’ ’ replied 
the discouraged mother. ‘ ‘ I wish you would pray for 
my girls. ’ ’ 

“A mother’s prayers will surely be heard; the 
child of many prayers is sure to be blessed , 9 9 suggested 
Parson Hamilton. 

In the bustle on the piazza as the guests went away, 
Elizabeth heard the voice of her lady of the ironing 
board : “ I suppose that old man has a beautiful 

family ; he talked like it.” 

Miss Cummings would not speak it out in meeting, nor 
tell her brother Joe, and hardly say it softly to herself, 
that the secret she wished to know about to-morrow 
was whether Shar Burbank would marry her brother 
Joe. She was confident that he had suggested going 
to the meeting with her because he was sure Shar 
could not escape him there ; she had a way at home of 
running out at the back door when he drove up to the 
front ; Shar’s mother had told her that. 

If she could know that, she would know how to plan 
about several other things — about fixing up a part of 
the house for herself, for instance. 


CHAPTEK XII 


BETSEY 

All round about our feet shall shine 
A light like that the wise men saw, 

If we our loving wills incline 
To that sweet Life which is the law. 

— Lowell. 

Not even the tenderest heart, and next our own, 

Knows half the reason why we smile or sigh. 

— Keble. 

I N the light of the truth given her at Faith Cottage, 
Elizabeth looked backward and saw that in the 
sorrow and suddenness of Mark Benson’s death she did 
not think first of God. She did not turn her face from 
him in hardness, bitterness, or rebellion ; she turned 
her face toward him, but it was to ask for another 
comforter than himself ; she still sought her heavenly 
places, but it was not with Christ Jesus. She cried 
to him for somebody or something to comfort the ache 
in her heart for the loss of the friend she loved best. 

This something, not God’s will and service, would be 
something to stay on earth for ; she must be comforted 
or die. Not once in all that sorrowful time did she 
pray, 1 ‘ Give me thyself. ’ ’ She had always had a plan 
for herself, and in this extremity she gave a plan to 
God, with which, if he pleased, he could comfort her. 

171 


172 


GOLDENROD FARM 


She was set apart from her sisters, from all other girls, 
by this trial that had come upon her. 

The first Sunday morning after Mark Benson went 
away without a word of farewell, Mr. Hamilton read a 
text that, if he had known her thoughts, he could not 
have better chosen. 

“For thou didst separate them from all the people 
of the earth.” 

These words were not all that he read, but this was 
all that her mind grasped and held fast. “ To be thine 
inheritance, ’ ’ had no message for her. It was her own 
inheritance that she desired. 

Her sorrow was in the presence of the Lord ; in her 
haste to flee from her sorrow she fled from the presence 
of the Lord. She fled into the strong tower of her- 
self. When Sister Deborah told her this, her first feel- 
ing was a flush of resentment. 

“ But I found exactly what I wanted. I could not 
have gone on — my life would have stopped without it. 
Wasn’t that providential? ” 

“ In the w T ay of God’s providing, you mean. Your 
first thought was your old home, Goldenrod Farm, 
where you could hide, and find work, and forget your 
trouble. The unusual happening of the invitation for 
a month to the home of Shar Burbank you thought 
was your providence.” 

“I certainly did. It came just in the right time 
and it had never happened before. You remember 
how Paul and the others were going to Jerusalem ; it 
says just this, ‘ Finding a ship ’. I marked that in my 


BETSEY 


173 


Bible ; I thought I had found my ship. It doesn’t 
say that God led him to a ship, but just that they 
found it. So I found my opportunity. And I went, 
and came to grief,” she confessed, ashamed and 
sorrowful. 

“ I have heard of another ship that came into some- 
body’s way ; ‘ And he found a ship ,’ the same expres- 
sion that is used about Paul’s ship. This ship was 
Jonah’s ship. Finding a ship is not all that has to be 
found. I should not wonder if there were always a ship 
in somebody’s way. A ship to be wrecked, perhaps.” 
Elizabeth’s face darkened ; had she been disobedient ? 
She had believed in herself, confident that only they 
who followed the way of prayer and providence found 
the ship. 

“ Jonah was fleeing from the presence of the Lord 
when he found his ship ; Paul, with the presence of the 
Lord, was going on the Lord’s business.” 

“ Then it isn’t — the ship,” with a slow, hard breath. 
“ No ; it never is the ship. There is always a ship. 
It is obedience that makes the difference. Jonah knew 
that he was disobeying ; so may you know. Paul 
knew that he was obeying ; so may you know. God 
will find you a ship when his time comes.” 

“ And I thought I had to find it myself ; and I did,” 
she said in bitter self-reproach. 

This was the first hour that Elizabeth had spent alone 
with Sister Deborah for three days. She told Sister 
Deborah she had wished for her. 

Parson Hamilton and Mary Mainwaring drove back 


174 


GOLDENROD FARM 


to Portland after two days of rest ; Harry Morse had 
errands in the city and proposed that Shar Burbank 
should go for the drive and to help him. The errands 
were pictures, books, and chairs for Faith Cottage. 

Shar said nothing would make her happier, and 
Mary Mainwaring’s look of relief was expressive 
enough to send Elizabeth out of the room to laugh. 
Hinchley brought the horses early in the morning and 
it was this morning that Elizabeth had alone with Sister 
Deborah. 

She told Sister Deborah the story of that month with 
Shar Burbank with shame of face and brokenness of 
heart. Her sisters had learned nothing of this visit to 
Shar Burbank but that it was not a success in the way 
of comfort ; Elizabeth had returned home pale and 
low-spirited. 

The story in itself was brief : Shar had a cousin who 
was a kind of half-brother ; her mother had married for 
her second husband her brother-in-law with one son, 
and this son was Maurice Burbank. 

He was older than Shar, and about two years older 
than herself ; he had been educated away from home, 
and she had never met him before. An uncle in the 
West had adopted him and he was a professor in a 
college in California ; he was overworked and had come 
to New England for rest and change. 

He happened to come while Elizabeth was there. 
Shar had not known that he was coming when she in- 
vited her. He was Shar’s great admiration ; people 
said they were alike, talented and ambitious. 


BETSEY 


175 


“I cannot tell you anything more — only for that 
month I almost forgot Mark. I was so homesick, and 
he was like Mark. We talked about the same things, 
and I told him about Mark and repeated some of his 
poems. Shar looked surprised when I went about with 
him, but I had to go about, just as I do now. I was 
not ill ; I never was ill. And he knew all the old 
places, and I showed him new ones. Shar had to be 
busy. I never thought of anything but how rested I 
was growing, until he said he was going away. Then 
I knew I did not want him to go. I did not want him 
ever to go. Perhaps I looked it. I know my lips did 
not speak it. And the dreadful, dreadful part of it 
was that he told Shar he should never marry ; his 
studies and his ambition were all the wife he wanted ; 
he was going abroad to study. She told me. I thought 
she meant me to know it. I thought he meant me to 
know it. And I hated him for telling her, and I hated 
her for telling me. I was glad for him to go ; I was 
glad to go home. Do you think God wanted to punish 
me for forgetting so soon ? ’ ’ 

“It was no sin against God to forget your friend, 
even if you did forget him, which I believe you did not. 
Do not call it punishment. Call it a tenderer name, 
discipline. Your ship was broken that you might be 
saved. In our heavenly places — we all seek heavenly 
places — we would never have Christ Jesus if we could 
have some one else. Christ Jesus first.” 

Elizabeth lifted her ashamed face. 

“ 4 They looked unto him and were lightened and 


176 


GOLDENROD FARM 


their faces were not ashamed,’ ” said Elizabeth’s com- 
forter, touching with her cool lips the burning face. 

‘ ‘ I need such hard lessons, ’ ’ Elizabeth exclaimed 
with angry energy. ‘ ‘ If I could only leave my life 
alone ! I am always pushing myself into things, and 
I pride myself upon understanding people. I thought 
I understood him. He seemed so loving to everything, 
to every flower and weed, and was so gentle to people. 
I was so proud that he cared to be with such a girl as I 
am. My admiration gets the better of me. My ad- 
miration for people eats me up. But I’ve learned — I 
think I have — ’’with laughing humility, “not to hold 
on so hard to people.” Then, after a moment, she said 
earnestly, ‘ 4 Do you not think it a beautiful life, a life of 
ease in God’s hand, not seeking, not longing, just trust- 
ful like a child, taking God’s will as it comes, as the 
child takes the cup from its mother’s hand and drinks? 
I think it would rest me ; I get so tired of thinking and 
deciding and digging into things. ’ ’ 

“ Beautiful, yes, if that is all life must be. Beauti- 
ful in a drifting, non -resisting sort of way ; a life of 
ease, as you say — rather lazy, perhaps. I think I 
should enjoy it and flatter myself that I was honoring 
God in so enjoying it. That is a little child’s life ; but 
you and I are older than a little child, with our years 
of experience in the ways of God ; we are bidden be 
not children in understanding. Perhaps you and I 
have become capable of understanding what the will of 
the Lord is. I do know that to drift along with the 
current of what seems God’s will would be the easier 


BETSEY 


177 


way for me, the less exhausting ; but in my growing life 
I cannot be satisfied with the babe-simile. I must ask, 
seek, knock at the door that opens into the wisdom and 
plan of God. This is not easy to me ; it is the hardest, 
most self-consuming work I can do. My days are full 
of questions that cannot be decided by simply taking 
life as it comes, as the child takes its cup of bread and 
milk. I find meat in my cup. I think God must be 
thinking of me as growing out of babyhood, or he 
would not mix my bread and milk up with his strong 
meat. That kind of submission is like fatalism ; why 
should you delight to say you have no will, no choice ? 
Christ had ; he often said to his Father, 4 1 will/ ” 

‘ ‘ Christ had the right to say it. ” 

“ So have we, when we will what we know is God’s 
will. And a babe does not know God’s will. A babe 
is in a kind of Nirvana, a Buddhist’s state of ecstatic 
unconsciousness, until the babe grows — which the Bud- 
dhist does not ; he has grown all he can, and come to 
the state of existence without a desire, if that is exist- 
ence. As some one says : ‘ I will to will God’s will.’ 
I have been reading about Cromwell. His trust in God 
was the implicit faith of the child ; every day, every 
hour, every moment, he looked for God’s sanction be- 
fore he took a step. His historian says : ‘ This simple 
trust was the source at once of Cromwell’s invincible 
strength, and of his no less remarkable irresolution and 
painful hesitancies.’ ” 

“ He had to hesitate until he knew what God com- 
manded him to do.” 

M 


178 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ But your babe does not hesitate ; it trusts, it waits, 
it weeps, with its eyes on its mother’s face. Once, 
when Joshua was on his face before the Lord, he was 
commanded to get up and do something. Perhaps if 
he had kept his eyes open he would have discovered the 
evil himself ; it was time to watch his host, not to be 
weeping before the Lord. Add to your faith, is a com- 
mand ; the babe begins with faith, the child and the 
man add to it. It is the adding that takes all that is 
in me.” 

“ But we can trust while we are adding.” 

‘ ‘ Surely, surely ; there would be nothing to add to 
if we did not trust. Faith is the only foundation ; but 
it is only the foundation. There is the building up to 
do, the building on it. You have no right to be 
always a baby Christian. You have been long enough 
feeding on God’s word to show growth.” 

‘ 1 But I am so slow. ’ ’ 

“ That is not all.” 

“ What else am I ? What else hinders ? ” 

“ Self-will.” 

“ But I thought I had given up my will.” 

“We always think so until something comes to test 
it.” 

“ Something is always coming.” 

‘ ‘ I hope so. Would you have God let you alone in 
your self-will as in a citadel ? ” 

‘ ‘ Then something will be always happening to me. 
And I do believe I enjoy the excitement of it.” 

“ Say the inspiration of it, ” checked Sister Deborah. 


BETSEY 


179 


“You remind me of my own girlhood. Howl live 
my life over again in your hopes and despairs and 
whims, your heart-breaking repentances ” 

“ But it wasn’t all bad for me,” said Elizabeth. 

“ Neither was it all bad for me,” was the reply ; “it 
is meant to be all good for us. It has been said : 
‘ Never is the cross so sweet as when it takes the place 
of an idol.’ ” 

‘ ‘ W as that idolatry ? ’ ’ questioned Elizabeth with 
awe. 

“ That was idolatry. You did not see the Comforter ; 
you sought the comfort of a human love.” 

1 ‘ That is my idolatry — people, ’ ’ exclaimed Elizabeth 
in despair. “ If I could have all the people I want, I 
should have all I want on earth and in heaven.” 

That experience had been a time of spiritual exalta- 
tion to Elizabeth ; a time of spiritual excitement she 
believed, after the month was over and she fell back 
into the old ways of her life at home. Not fell back, 
perhaps lifted forward and upward is more true ; it was 
stillness after the storm. For a while there seemed 
nothing to hope for, or to have ; she was listless, she 
missed something she had always had, something to 
look forward to ; life w r as tame. She said something 
like this to her teacher. 

‘ ‘ Life is not to be always in the mount of exalted 
feeling. Moses came down from the mount to find the 
clamor of sin. Christ came down to find a child pos- 
sessed of the devil. You may love better this time of 
exaltation ; God may love better your quieter spirit 


180 


GOLDENROD FARM 


and your looking forward and your work. He does 
not love either, unless in it Jesus Christ comes first.’ ’ 

4 4 I believe the trouble is that I crave sensations, ’ ’ 
Elizabeth replied, in the tone in which she usually 
cudgeled herself ; “and I want them all the time. I 
do not know how to be satisfied with the uneventful 
hours and days. Think of Mary Mainwaring all her 
life ; she never had an excitement. 

44 Be not so sure of that,” said the older woman. 

44 Unless something is happening, or I am afraid that 
something will happen or glad that something will 
happen, I stagnate. Ah, me, what a creature I am ! ” 

4 ‘ And some day you will be old like me, with all 
your happenings over.” 

“You have happenings all the time. I would like 
to be like you. You make everything a 4 happening ’ 
— even I am a 4 happening ’ to you.” 

“You certainly are.” 

To Elizabeth there was a happening that day. 

As she stood on the wooden steps that led to the 
shore, Harry Morse came and stood behind her. 

“Ah, Betsey,” he said. 

She turned, and brought her pale face to the view of 
his most sympathetic eyes. 

4 4 1 cannot go away without talking to you about 
Mark Benson,” he said. 44 You had no thought that 
I was his friend and physician in Florida. Do you re- 
member that my letter to you was signed H. H. Morse ? ’ ’ 

44 No, I did not look at the signature. I did not 
care. But I read your letter to pieces.” 


BETSEY 


181 


“I was in the house with him for two months. I 
saw your picture every day. Every day he talked of 
you. He always called you Betsey. He asked me to 
find you and be good to you. Come out in the boat.” 
They were out two hours in the boat, and all the 
while they talked of Mark Benson. He gave her 
Mark Benson’s life in detail, the books he read, the 
walks they took together, the long letters he wrote to 
his Uncle Mark, as brave as old Uncle Mark himself, 
the last drive, when he appeared more like himself than 
he had ever known him, and the next day the hem- 
orrhage and passing away in his sleep. 

“ He did not tell you of that Sunday night that he 
told me all about himself, and how Uncle Mark was 
pushing and hurrying him South and away from me ? ’ ’ 
“ He told me all.” 

‘ * Did he say how I urged and urged him that we 
should be married ? Our engagement had been a year — 
I wanted to give all my life and all my money to save 
him ? I would have been a good nurse ; I would have 
given my life for his life. He said he had no right to 
such a sacrifice. I told him I had the right, the blessed 
right, to make such a sacrifice, if he could call it a sac- 
rifice when it would be my joy.” 

“ He told me that. He feared that his life would go 
out in darkness ; he would spare you that. ’ ’ 

“ I did not want to be spared that.” 

After a silence she said : ‘ ‘ He spoke of my sisters. 
I knew my sisters would not consent, but I thought 
Parson Hamilton would, and he would marry us. If I 


182 


GOLDENROD FARM 


had been so ill and poor he would have given his very 
life for me. That is what marriage is. Christ gave 
himself for his bride, the church. He would not have 
died so soon if I had been with him ; the separation 
broke his heart. But he w T ould not listen ; he fled 
away from me as if I had been a temptation.” 

“ He was right. From every standpoint he was 
right.” 

“ Not from mine,” she murmured. 

“ He did the bravest thing a brave man could do.” 
“ I thought he did not love me and I said so. He 
said we must not even write to each other. If he lived 
and grew strong he would come back to me. But your 
letter came instead.” 

Her voice broke, but she did not weep. 

‘ ‘ It was best as it was. You will believe it when 
you are old and wise.” 

‘ ‘ I try to believe it now. Sometimes I do believe 
it.” 

‘ ‘ You could not save him, and he would not spoil 
your life.” 

‘ ‘ It would have blessed my life. ’ ’ 

“ It was good for me to know him ; he was the best 
man I ever knew ; a rare spirit, a fine intellect, a 
heart like a woman’s. His love is a crown to you. It 
was because of what he said to me in that last drive 
that I gave up my life -plans — I used to be an ambitious 
fellow— and became a doctor among the poor.” 

‘ ‘ I beg your pardon and his for what I said the 
other day. You see I was not worthy of him. I had 


BETSEY 


183 


been in the whirl of society life for a year before 
we became engaged. I had begun to love ambition 
and admiration and all the things of the world ; but he 
saved me from myself. * 9 

‘ 1 Parson Hamilton took me to his Uncle Mark. 
That was really my purpose in going with you to Port- 
land, but I did not wish to tell you then. I wanted 
you to feel more at home with me before I spoke of 
Mark. He was like his Uncle Mark. What a face 
the old man has, with an eye like an angel ! What a 
life for a man to live ! He is as content as any angel 
sent down to earth to do God’s errand. He talked of 
Mark as if he were his mother. He held my hand as 
if he could not let me go. I promised to write to him 
every week. He said it was like having his dear boy 
come back to speak to him. I expected to see him and 
you. I promised Mark I would see you both, but I 
waited until it would be easier for you to hear what I 
had to say. To-morrow I am going home to my tired 
mothers and ailing babies and patients, just out of the 
hospitals. I would like to take you on a round of 
visits, or have you one day in my office.” 

“ Oh, dear,” said Elizabeth laughingly, “ what would 
the girls think ? They say I am daft now. You will 
come to Uncle Mark again ? ” 

‘ 4 1 promised him I would come for a week this 
winter and visit him every day, or sooner, if his 
strength does not hold out. He quoted a beautiful 
thing to me, as he held my hand, both hands, in part- 
ing : ‘ The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, 


184 


GOLDENROD FARM 


the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable 
way of dying.’ ” 

“I wish Mr. Lefferts could hear him say that,” 
sighed Elizabeth. 

Before Doctor Harry Morse left Faith Cottage, his 
aunt asked him what he thought of her latest discovery 
in girl. 

In reply he quoted part of something he had seen 
in a paper on the train : 

“ She’s a highly energetic, 

Indissuadable, magnetic, 

Peripatetic, and athletic kind of girl.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE SECOND TOUCH 

Oh, the constant care and patience 
That we each of us require, 

Ere we answer the ideal 
Of his infinite desire. 

— Charlotte Murray . 

I fear not Thy withdrawal ; more I fear 
Seeing, to know thee not, hoodwinked with dreams 
Of signs and wonders, while, unnoticed, thou 
Walking thy garden still, commun’st with men 
Missed in the commonplace of miracle. 

— Lowell. 

H ARRY MORSE’S uptown rooms looked large and 
empty that first evening at home ; he missed 
something, or was it some one ? 

If he should take a house, or a handsome flat, would 
Aunt Deborah come and keep house for him, he won- 
dered, make a home for a man to come back to at 
night ? 

But no ; she would never be persuaded ; she could 
no more give up her work for him than he could give 
up his work for her sake. He had no right to think 
of such a sacrifice. But, then, might she not work 
among his poor people ? Three months’ vacation she 
could still have at Faith Cottage. He would never 
dare suggest it ; was she not ‘ ‘ called ’ ’ to her special 

185 


186 


GOLDENROD FARM 


work ? W ere not women as well as men separated 
unto special work ? Did he regret his week at Faith 
Cottage ? W as he not strong enough to look into a 
home, a home made beautiful by the presence of a 
woman, and not covet it for his own? There was 
Parson Hamilton. 

He was young, the preacher was almost an old man, 
nearly three-score ; to be three-score and have only a 
home like these empty rooms ! The medical volume he 
had read last was still open on his desk, and he thought 
he was reading medicine. He would have entered in 
his note book, “ Read till eleven -thirty.” 

If Elizabeth missed somebody or something the day 
after he went away she did not know it ; she was busy 
with plans for her new possession. 

Sister Deborah, Elizabeth, and Shar had been through 
the woods to Elizabeth’s “ farm.” 

They had climbed into the rocky upland and en- 
joyed the view of sky and of land and water ; then 
they had pushed themselves through bushes and over a 
low stone wall down into the meadow. 

“ It’s wild enough,” said Shar. 

“ Yes, as wild as I like it. Day and night I ponder 
and ponder what I shall do with it. I am like a child 
who has been crying for a plaything, and when he has 
it, finds his hands full of something he doesn’t know 
what to do with.” 

4 4 Tell her, Sister Deborah,” urged Shar. 

” No ; I never tell people what to do with anything. 
If they are in the way the Lord will lead them.” 


THE SECOND TOUCH 


187 


“ Through you,” said Shar. 

‘ ‘ But he will begin with themselves. Elizabeth will 
know when the time comes.” 

“ Then I’ll forget it and think of something else ; I 
was berating myself because I did not know my own 
mind.” 

‘ ‘ I never feel anxious about the work of people who 
have first given themselves to the Lord.” 

“But mine is only first ; there is no second,” be- 
moaned Elizabeth. “ I never did any real doing in my 
life. My ambitions somehow are crumbling to pieces.” 
“I suppose one’s own family doesn’t count,” said 
Shar. “I can work anywhere better than at home. 
There is more inspiration aw T ay from home.” 

“ More excitement, you mean,” was the sharp reply. 
‘ ‘ A girl who needs a sensation to help her do her duty 
at home lives at a very low spiritual ebb. What is 
that about beginning at Jerusalem ? ’ ’ 

“Oh, delightful!” said Elizabeth, connecting the 
thought with her Jerusalem. 

“ It isn’t delightful to me,” muttered Shar. 

She had confided to Sister Deborah one of her home 
troubles ; it was that she did not love her mother. 
Sister Deborah had replied : “If a girl love not her 
mother whom she hath seen, how can she love God 
whom she hath not seen ? ’ ’ 

They found themselves in the road ; they went on 
leisurely, Sister Deborah between them. 

4 ‘ Sister Deborah, ’ ’ asked Shar, ‘ ‘ how did you begin 
to get rid of yourself and to go out so to other people ? ’ ’ 


188 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“With my mother, I think. It was the beautiful 
life of my mother that kej^t me from unbelief in an 
unbelieving time in my life. She was an invalid ; I 
gave myself to her without stint — body, mind, and 
soul ; and when she was gone I said, if I could so give 
my life to my mother, why could I not so give, without 
stint, my body, mind, and soul to One who had com- 
forted me as a mother comforts. It did not come all at 
once, it was gradual ; but when I gave, I gave all.” 
For a while both girls were silent, then Shar spoke: 

“ I can’t help thinking — since you talked about the 
wilderness in our meeting last night — that the peo- 
ple had too dreadful a time,” the thought linking 
itself with her thought of her own home. “Think 
of the fiery serpents sent to bite them just because they 
murmured about having no bread and no water in the 
wilderness ; their soul loathed this light bread, and I 
should think it would. In winter we have bread cakes 
at home until I’m sick and tired of them, and bread 
pudding, and bread everything. Father likes them.” 
‘ ‘ How often did they have manna ? ’ ’ asked Sister 
Deborah, as interested in the manna as she was in the 
bread cakes. The manna and the children of Israel 
were as near and real to her as Shar and her bread 
cakes. 

“Why, all the time, always, and nothing else. 
That’s a part of the ‘ great and terrible wilderness ’ to 
me. ” 

Elizabeth laughed at her vehemence. She had never 
thought about the manna. 


THE SECOND TOUCH 


189 


“ Who said that? ” continued Sister Deborah. 

“ Why, the Bible, of course.’’ 

‘ ‘ Does it say it fell every day in the year ? ’ ’ 

“ Why, yes,” adding a hesitating, “of course.” 

“ Suppose you look at that again.” 

“You don’t think it did fall every day? ” 

“Once they encamped under three -score and ten 
palm trees ” 

“ Oh, the dates. But that was only once, and only 
seventy trees.” 

‘ ‘ And they had flocks and herds, very many. ’ ’ 

“ Oh, lamb, mutton, and milk.” 

“But not flocks and herds to ‘ suffice them,’ as 
Moses said to God. God could have given flocks 
and herds to suffice them had he not meant them to be 
humbled by hunger. They were permitted to purchase 
food of the Edomites with money, so what was to 
hinder buying food of other people as they journeyed on ? 
There was a lamb for each household at the Passover 
time ; it would take immense flocks to supply them. 
If they were obedient and kept the Passover yearly, 
then once a year, at least, they had flesh enough.” 
“Then the wilderness was better than I thought,” 
said Shar, enlightened and convinced. “And I think 
they were very horrid to make such a fuss.” 

‘ ‘ It was speaking against God and doubting his 
wisdom and goodness when they said, ‘ Wherefore 
have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the 
wilderness ? ’ Out of Egypt ! As if Egypt were better. 
They wept and murmured and fretted. They could 


190 


GOLDENROD FARM 


have prayed for flesh without murmuring. God 
thought manna was good for them. Flesh was promised 
in abundance when they should enter the land. They 
were journeying toward it. This was a probation time, 
a testing time, a humbling time ; he suffered them to 
hunger. So we know they did hunger. They rebelled 
against his time of giving them flesh. They were 
hungry for it then. They desired good more than 
they desired God. They had enough, Elizabeth.” 

“ Yes,” said Elizabeth, out of her full heart. 

Shar said nothing ; she felt that she was nothing but 
a bundle of discontent. 

“ Discontent is often another name for desire. Dis- 
content with what we have creates the desire for what 
we have not. A girl full of desires may be a girl full 
of discontent. They had manna while they fretted for 
flesh ; they had God’s will for them while they fretted 
for their own will.” 

‘ ‘ ‘ Delight thyself also in the Lord and he shall give 
thee the desires of thine heart,’ ” Elizabeth quoted 
with an air of triumph. In her secret heart she believed 
that her desires were not for “ flesh.” 

“ Delight comes first, then the discontent dies away, 
and the desire is born of delight instead of discontent, ’ ’ 
replied Sister Doborah. 

At lunch that day, as Sister Deborah took a slice of 
bread, she said : ‘ ‘ In 1829, during the war between 
Persia and Kussia, there was a famine at Oroomiah.” 

“ Where is Oroomiah ? ” asked Shar. “ I shall fail 
in geography if I don’t study up.” 


THE SECOND TOUCH 


191 


44 Southwest of the Caspian Sea,” answered Elizabeth. 
44 Have you forgotten your school geography ?” 

44 Yes, since I became a drudge.” 

The ladies at the table supposed the famine was sug- 
gested by the bountiful bread plate, but Shar and 
Elizabeth knew that something was coming out of their 
morning’s talk. 

4 4 One day during the famine there was a strong 
wind, and the ground was covered with what the people 
called bread from heaven ; it fell in thick showers. 
Sheep fed on it, and people who had never seen it be- 
fore, encouraged by the sheep, hastily and hungrily 
gathered it. When it was ground to flour and baked 
into bread it was found to be pleasant and nourishing. 
It fell in some places to the extent of six inches deep, 
half a foot of bread. ’ ’ 

4 4 Why, it was like manna, ’ ’ said Shar. 

44 Something like it, perhaps much like it. It was 
round, and in size differed from a pin’s head to a 
walnut.” 

44 Perhaps it was manna, and these people were fed 
like the Israelites.” 

4 4 It was an edible lichen. It lies loose on the soil, 
growing by the nourishment on the surface, and so 
light that it is easily carried and spread by a high wind 
over Persia and Middle Asia.” 

44 How interesting,” said a quiet lady at Elizabeth’s 
side. 44 1 like to study the Bible in that way. Manna 
has always been a mystery to me.” 

44 This fact does not explain it,” said Sister Deborah, 


192 


GOLDENROD FARM 


4 ‘ but it does show how God sent bread from heaven in 
1829. Our bread is from heaven too, if it does have 
to die in the ground first. I read once, in a famine, 
that the peasants made bread for themselves and starv- 
ing children, which they called hunger bread, out of 
weeds, chopped tree bark, and straw ; sometimes sand 
was added to make substance ; when their children 
cried for bread, the father gave hunger bread .’ 9 

‘ ‘ And speaking against things is speaking against 
God. How I have spoken against bread cakes ! ” said 
Shar, with vehement self-accusation. 

For the first time since she had been away from home 
this summer Shar felt homesick. Her father and 
mother were alone, now that Alice was at Goldenrod 
Farm ; the dinner table with two instead of four must 
seem rather lonely to the two. It was probably a 
silent meal ; Alice and herself were the talkers at home. 
Perhaps her mother was tired ; some one had said her 
mother w T as slow because she was not strong. Could 
she love God and not love her mother ? Perhaps she 
did love her mother — perhaps she wanted to go home. 

That night there was a stir in Shar’s white bed. 
Elizabeth lifted her head. Shar’s face was deep in the 
pillow ; the girl was sobbing. 

Elizabeth lay down and kept still. Was it some- 
thing new or something old that troubled Shar ? 

Was it that roughly written, warm-hearted, incor- 
rectly spelled letter from Joe Cummings? Was it — 
could it be — that Harry Morse was keeping her from 
the appreciation of the good in her farmer lover ? 


THE SECOND TOUCH 


193 


Was it the old doubt Luke LefFerts had instilled? 
Was it the old dread of the shoe shop and the old 
longing for the schoolroom ? 

If Shar did not speak there was nothing for her to 
say. 

“ Elizabeth/ ’ came in a half-sob from Shar’s pillow. 

“Yes, Shar.” 

“Wouldn’t you think that people who were born 
together were born to work together ? ’ ’ 

“ Yes, if that w T ere all I knew about them.” 

“You know about me and my mother. When I am 
quick and orderly and neat — I can’t help it, I was 
born so — she tells me I am like my father, a rusher 
and a pusher. She is as slow as she can be. When 
she is alone, and she is alone now, the dishes are not 
washed till night, they are around all day ; the ironing 
gets done, what isn’t left over, late Saturday ; the wash- 
ing hangs on all the week. She sweeps whenever she 
thinks of it. About herself she is as neat as a pin, her 
hair always pretty, her collar clean, and her dress as 
nice as a dress can be that is always about the kitchen. 
Father tells her she is prettier than her daughters and 
she tries to keep young and pretty for him. He is 
twenty -three years older. But having things always 
behind worries me so ; Alice is like mother, as pretty 
as a picture, and as full of fun as a kitten, and as 
much a society girl as a country girl can be. Mother 
saves Alice’s hands from the roughest work, and so what 
mother doesn’t do doesn’t get done. I oughtn’t to be 
here in all this luxury and study and have mother 

N 


194 


GOLDENROD FARM 


working so hard ; I am a great deal stronger. I can 
go back to Mrs. Mars ten’s and let Alice go to mother. 
They never rub against each other. They laugh and 
frolic together like two girls.” 

“ Yes,” advised Elizabeth, “I think I would if I 
had a mother, even if we did rub against each other. 
I think having a mother must be the most blessed thing 
that can happen to a girl.” 

The next morning, as soon as she was dressed, Shar 
packed her bag. After breakfast she said to Sister 
Deborah : “ I don’t know what you have done for me, 
but my heart is not hard to my mother any more. I 
grew up wishing I could love my mother as Elizabeth 
loves her sister, and as some other girls love their 
mothers. I heard a girl say once : ‘ I could eat any- 
thing out of my mother’s mouth.’ And I wished I 
could love things my mother made or touched. I did 
not like to touch her, even. But some of that is gone 
out of me. I want to go home. I want to be a good 
daughter. The breath of something here has breathed 
all over me.” 

“Go in peace, dear child. May He bless you yet 
more.” 

That evening in the little prayer meeting Elizabeth 
was brought out of a reverie, in which Shar was the 
central interest, by the voice of a lady from one of the 
summer cottages. 

“You remember that some of the tribes were allowed 
not to go over Jordan. They had a will about it and 
it was granted them.” 


THE SECOND TOUCH 


195 


“Oh,” said another, “I thought they were all so 
eager for the Promised Land nothing could keep them 
back.” 

“ These tribes, ” replied Sister Deborah, “the Reu- 
benites and Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, 
loved their flocks and tent life better than agriculture 
and town life on the promised side of Jordan. God 
had his large will for them ; they chose their small wills 
for themselves.” 

“Moses gave it to them,” insisted the lady; “if 
they were satisfied where they were, they were not com- 
pelled to go over Jordan. You do not know that God 
was displeased with them.” The speaker evidently had 
a plan of her own that was stopping short of God’s 
plan for her. She spoke nervously and fluently. 

Sister Deborah answered in a voice that seemed in 
contrast quieter than ever: “Follow them into the 
centuries ; study their history. They grew like the 
Arabs about them ; they made war against the tribes 
with whom they came in contact, and cried to God in 
the battle, and he was entreated of them because they 
put their trust in him ; they became mighty men of 
valor ; then they followed the gods of the people of the 
land, and the king of Assyria fought against them and 
carried them away.” 

“ But,” urged the nervous voice, “ that same thing 
happened to the tribes who passed over and had what 
you call the larger will of God.” 

“Not like this. Study and you will see. The 
promised side had the temple and the temple service. 


196 


GOLDENROD FARM 


No prophet, judge, or hero do we read of among the 
Reubenites and Gadites ; they took second best when 
God was urging them on to the best. He gave them 
second best because they asked for it ; thus they refused 
his best. Beyond all other places the territory of the 
Reubenites is esteemed to this day by the Arab as best 
for his sheep/ ’ 

‘ ‘ Then they had the best of something, ’ ’ replied the 
lady in the tone of one gaining a point. 

‘ ‘ Yes, they had exactly what they wanted , 9 ’ said Sister 
Deborah. “ So may we, sometimes — sheep pasture, in- 
stead of the temple service / 9 

“ I am glad you said that,” remarked Elizabeth, 
who spoke very easily in these informal meetings ; ‘ ‘ our 
own side of the Jordan does look so tempting.” 

After the closing prayer (and it was Elizabeth whom 
she asked to speak to the Lord with them) Sister De- 
borah said : ” I would like to have us all take this 
question as our last thought to-night : ‘ Do we desire 
God’s will as something he has thought of for us, or as 
something we have have thought of for ourselves ? ’ I 
will read to you. No ; Elizabeth, you may read, 
please. ’ ’ 

Sister Deborah handed her a small book, opened. 
Elizabeth read aloud the marked passage : ‘ ‘ Of course, 
I have no word to say against planning when that is 
evidently God’s method of delivering us ; but I am 
desperately afraid lest our planning should take the 
place of simple waiting on God till the cloud rises and 
moves forward and shows us our path across the track- 


THE SECOND TOUCH 


197 


less sands. We are all so apt to pray and then try to 
concert a plan for our own deliverance. Surely, then, 
the nobler attitude after prayer is to stand still for God 
to develop his plan, leading us in w T ays that we had 
never guessed. The blessed life of our Lord was abso- 
lutely planless.’ ’ 

A little lady who had listened intently all through 
the meeting, but had not spoken, said very clearly, and 
not at all timidly : “I believe people may pray and not 
really want to know God’s plan or keep their eyes open 
to providences. There is Balaam. I have thought a 
great deal about Balaam. God spoke to him in the 
night, and he arose up in the morning, and without 
waiting to see if the men would come as God said they 
would, if he were willing for him to go, went with the 
princes of Moab. Perhaps he went to them. He said 
very piously that he could not go beyond the word of 
the Lord his God, and he did ; not waiting for God’s 
sign was going beyond. He did not w T ait through one 
day.” 

‘ 4 When I see it put like that, ’ ’ said Agnes, the mite 
of a woman, “ I always think how little trouble there 
would be in the world if people would wait, especially 
after God has spoken to them.” 

“ I think God must have been willing for him to go 
and bless Israel. We couldn’t lose that blessing ; but 
he had to go by the way of disobedience, just as God 
wanted Israel to have a king, and their disobedient way 
was to have forty years of Saul,” said Barbara, who 
often furnished a thought for Agnes. 


198 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ It is a good prayer to pray that we may not have 
our own disobedient way,” remarked Elizabeth. “ I 
believe all my life I shall be thankful for denied 
prayers. ” 

As the ladies stood on the piazza, Agnes and Barbara 
moved about among them, speaking to each, answering 
a question, or giving some bit of help out of their own 
Bible study or spiritual history. They were plain, 
sweet-faced women ; the joy of the Lord was their 
strength. 

“ I never thought before that I might rejoice over an 
upset and much -prayed -oyer plan/’ said a voice out in 
the starlight ; ‘ ‘ bounds were set to my disobedient 

way. ’ ’ 

Alone with Sister Deborah, Elizabeth threw her arms 
about her and kissed her. “ You have let me exceed 
my time. I have been with you over three weeks. 
The cobwebs are blown out of my brain. You haven’t 
said I may not come as often as I wish.” 

“ Come every day, if you will, my child.” 

Then, because it was her last evening, Sister Deb- 
orah came to her room and sat beside her after she was 
in bed. 

It was like being a child and having your mother 
come to give you a second good -night kiss. 

“I have brought something special for you — some- 
thing about your illusions. You remember a blind man 
was brought to Christ, and Christ led him out of the 
town and spat upon his eyes and put his hands upon 
him ; and after all the leading of Christ, and the heal- 


THE SECOND TOUCH 


199 


ing of the spittle upon his eyes, and the touch of his 
hands, the man looked up and saw men as trees, walk- 
ing. A man looked like a tree walking. Was that all 
that Christ had done for him ? And he had given him- 
self to him in faith, to be led, to be spat upon, to be 
touched ; and now, how much better was sight than 
blindness ? Or, was the world all an illusion ? W as it 
true that men were always like trees walking ? Christ 
had opened his eyes. What he saw must be true. 

4 ‘ Then, after acknowledging his illusion, the Lord 
put his hands again upon his eyes and made him look 
up. This time he did something besides touching his 
eyes ; he made him look up. And then the man who 
had received the second touch saw every man clearly.’ ’ 

“ Will he touch my eyes again, do you think ? ” 

“ I know he will. The second touch is the baptism 
of the Holy Spirit.” 

They sat together silent in the starlight. Elizabeth 
was too happy to speak. 

‘ ‘ Did anything happen after that ? ’ ’ she asked after 
a while. 

“ He sent him away to his house.” 

“ But my house is an empty house.” 

“ To-night ; but not for long, we hope.” 

“ It will be long, I fear.” 

‘ ‘ Do you have to fear ? ’ ’ with a smile and a touch 
on Elizabeth’s hand. 

“ I have to fear that. There’s no ‘ together ’ about 
my home to-night.” 

” There was to this man whom Jesus took apart to be 


200 


GOLDENROD FARM 


together with himself. After that second blessing he sent 
him home. Do you believe he sent him to an empty 
house ? ’ * 

“No,” said Elizabeth, “ for he had work to do in 
it.” 

Thus comforted and comforting herself, she lay still 
a long time, thinking. 


CHAPTER XIY 


FROM OVER THE SEA 

To work — to rest — for each a time, 

I toil ; but I must also climb. 

I am not glad till I have known 
Life that can lift me from my own. 

— Lucy Larcom. 

E LIZABETH ran up the stairs of the pine cottage ; 

even with all her happiness at Faith Cottage she 
was glad to be back in her pine chamber. It was un- 
changed, of course it was ; how stupid to think the 
room had been away, a long time away and come 
home changed because she was changed ! She had 
seen them all, in the kitchen and on the piazza and the 
lawn. Several people had gone away ; the few who 
were left were at one table in the long dining room. 
Mrs. Wentworth had not left as she had threatened ; 
Shar had returned, and her sister Alice had gone home. 
Up the second flight of pine stairs she hastened and 
knocked at the door of the large chamber under the 
roof. 

The voice of Mrs. Wentworth called, “ Come in.” 
She opened the door to find her alone ; she was sit- 
ting upon the cot ; the large bed had an unoccupied 
look ; two trunks were gone ; there was no clothing 
hanging from the rafters. 


201 


202 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“They have gone, those school-teachers, and I am 
here alone in my glory. Mary wants me to stay and 
feel welcome. Sit down and let me tell you ; every- 
thing has been happening. ’ ’ 

“ That is what has been happening to me.” 
Elizabeth seated herself on the trunk under the win- 
dow and looked off over the fields. 

“You know — but I suppose you don’t — ” began 
Mrs. Wentworth nervously, “that I had just about 
decided to go away. But Mary cried and that kept 
me. My children have always twisted me about their 
little fingers since I was left a widow at twenty-five, 
with Julius five and Mary a baby. My husband did 
not leave me a cent, and I had to go to work with that 
baby six months old, and I did. I was a milliner, 
and I went into a store and left a little girl at home to 
take care of the baby ; Julius took care of himself. 
In two years my father died and left me enough to go 
into business ; I was proud and wouldn’t take a cent 
while he lived, because he did not approve of my hus- 
band. My husband was a music teacher and didn’t 
earn much, but that was all he could say against him ; 
you think I am wandering off, but I am only coming to 
my point. I made money in my business, sent the 
children to school, and never let Mary come into the 
store ; Julius had all he wanted, as far as I could give 
it to him. 

“I have kept my house, I do own that; but he 
has had all the rest. I gave up the business, I rented 
part of my house ; Mary was married and taken care of, 


FROM OYER THE SEA 


203 


and I thought Julius would take care of his mother. 
It is months since he has done anything for me. My 
property has expenses of its own which I have to take 
out of the rent, and the rent of half a house, not 
large enough anyway, is all my living. I can go back 
and live on a crust, which is what I expect to do ; or 
get a place in a store, which I am fully competent to 
do, ‘and I have business friends ; but Mary hates to 
have me do it. Julius went to Europe with Mr. Lef- 
ferts ; it costs him nothing and he wants to see the 
world. He said he had promise of a brilliant future, 
if that is what he calls brilliant ; but he means some- 
thing else, as he has written since he got to England.” 
“What does he mean?” asked Elizabeth, bringing 
her eyes in from the field. 

She had forgotten the plaintive woman on the bed. 

“ Haven’t you a suspicion ? It concerns you.” 

‘ ‘ How can it ? There is nothing brilliant about me 
or my future. ’ ’ 

“ But there is to him if he marries a rich wife.” 
Elizabeth laughed. “But he isn’t going to marry 
me ; what do you mean ? ’ ’ 

“It is just as brilliant to marry your sister,” was 
the reply. 

“ My sister ! Cynthia? Do you mean that he ex- 
pects to marry Cynthia ? ’ ’ 

“ Are you so blind ? Don’t you know that they have 
been engaged for a year ? ’ ’ 

“ No,” said Elizabeth, “ and I don’t believe it if he 
does say so.” 


204 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ You may believe me. They are to be married in 
Paris. When did you hear last ? ” 

“ Two or three days ago.” 

“1 heard this morning. There may be letters for 
you at the house. Did you look ? ” 

“No.” Elizabeth sprang up. “I was so interested 
in coming back, I forgot the mail. I forgot we had it 
here so early in the morning. ’ * 

In two minutes she sat alone in her room with a bud- 
get of mail. She tore Isabel’s letter open. It was 
true ; Cynthia and Julius Wentworth were to be mar- 
ried. He had crossed the ocean to marry her. He 
expected to study music in Paris. They were to stay 
abroad an indefinite time. Cynthia said she hated Port- 
land and would not live in the same city with the 
American Mainwarings. 

The marriage made Isabel homesick, but Martha was 
determined to stay longer. Jessica seemed to be settled 
at Main waring Park. Cynthia wished her sisters to 
buy her share of the house. 

Jessica’s letter was bright, making the best of the 
marriage. Julius was really devoted to Cynthia, and 
his age (or youth) appeared to be the only objection ; 
he was a gentleman, Cynthia would be away from her 
mother-in-law, and they would enjoy music and each 
other, and certainly Cyn was old enough to judge for 
herself. 

Martha was ashamed and quite in despair, she wrote. 
After Cyn had waited all this time, to take up with 
such a broken stick ! Isabel was half sick over it, 


FROM OVER THE SEA 


205 


she had so much family pride, and Julius was such a 
do-nothing. If it were only Luke Lefferts or Professor 
Burbank. What did people at her age want to marry 
for, anyway ? She had money and position and could 
do anything she wanted to do. They had started out 
for a glorious year, and now this ! “ Don’t you do some 

dreadful thing and add to the family disgrace,” she 
ended; “the best thing you can do is to follow us. 
Mrs. Hinchley will bring you ; she will be glad to visit 
her friends here, if they are not all dead by this time, 
or I will run over after you myself. Parson Hamilton 
will be glad of the travel if you pay his expenses. 
You can certainly travel with your old guardian. Send 
a cablegram if you decide to come.” 

Reading the letters was weary work. Her home was 
broken up. For a moment all the sunshine went out of 
the sky. 

She opened Mary Mainwaring’s letter, thinking there 
would be the comfort of no dreary changes in that, but 
after the first sentence the sheet dropped from her hand. 

“ Louise died suddenly this morning after three days’ 
illness. Our hearts are broken, and not only for our- 
selves ; what will poor Mark Benson do ? How can he 
live without her ? ’ ’ 

How indeed? Her sympathy was all for “Uncle 
Mark,” poor Uncle Mark, dear Uncle Mark ! She 
must go somewhere ; she must do something. She 
must tell Mark, her own Mark ; he could do something. 

An hour ago, walking and singing through the 
woods, she had been so glad. God was so good, and 


206 


GOLDENROD FARM 


his world was so fair. And now she buried her face 
in her hands and sobbed aloud. 

What good could she do to anybody? She could 
neither comfort nor help ; she might as well stay where 
she was — stay where she was and be miserable. She 
was alone in her heavenly place ; did God ever leave 
anybody alone ? 

Mary Mainwaring’s letter had been on the dining- 
room mantel three days and no one had thought to send 
it to her. Louise was put away out of sight in that 
cemetery at the end of Spring Street, as her Mark had 
been, and Uncle Mark was alone. 

No one wanted her ; she might as well not be in the 
world. That shut-up stone house made her shiver ; 
there was nothing to do but to go to Isabel. She could 
comfort Isabel. No one loved her like Isabel. She 
would send the cablegram — but, no, she would see 
Parson Hamilton first. 

“ I do not know how to comfort you,” she wrote to 
Mary Mainwaring, “but I was comforted once. I wish 
Sister Deborah could talk to you all and dear Uncle 
Mark.” 

She slept that night and awoke to a morning of rain, 
a chilly September rain. She had no heart to write 
letters, no heart to plan for herself ; it was too wet for 
even herself to go through the woods to Faith Cottage, 
and the horse was lame in the stable. 

‘ ‘ Aunt Martha, ’ ’ she said at the kitchen door, 
“ give me something to do.” 

“I’ll take you up to the garret as soon as these biscuits 


FROM OYER THE SEA 


207 


are in the oven ; I have been promising myself to take 
you up there as soon as you came back. Put on a shawl, 
because it is chilly. You shall look in that old chest 
you used to tease me to look into when you were a little 
girl.” 


CHAPTER XV 


AN INSPIRATION 


If all circumstances lead me, I will find 
Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed 
Within the center. 

— Shakespeare. 

So shall 

All loved things vanished or that die 
Return to use in some sweet by and by. 

“TTTE do not dust the garret every day/’ Aunt 
▼ T Martha excused, brushing a fleck of dust off 
the surface of a rickety table. “ You may have every- 
thing you can find in that long chest. It was your 
Great-uncle Levi’s when he was a sailor. I’ve put old 
papers in there and things of no value. One time 
when your uncle was away — he was in a gunboat three 
years during the war — and I had gone with Mrs. Bur- 
bank to Portland for the day, who should come but a 
peddler ; Mother Marsten was here alone, and he wanted 
old papers, and she sold him a whole trunkful for fifty 
cents. I could have sat down and cried when I came 
back. I had said to myself I would read over all the 
old letters in the Avinter evenings. The spelling is bad 
sometimes, and the writing not like yours and Shar’s, 
but the family news is interesting. When your uncle 
came home I told him. He was so sorry for poor 
Mother Marsten that he didn’t say one word.” 

208 


AN INSPIRATION 


209 


“ That was too bad. But I shall find something. 
When I was a little girl I used to speculate about the 
hidden treasures of that old chest and dared not lift the 
heavy lid. ’ ’ 

“In that case, under the eaves, are the decanters, 
glass and gilt, that used to be on the sideboard a 
hundred years ago, a hundred and fifty years ago. 
And that cradle/’ pointing to a wooden cradle with a 
wooden hood, “ your father and grandfather were 
rocked in. ’ ’ 

Aunt Martha went downstairs and left Elizabeth 
poring over a hand -made book. Every word had an 
interest of its own. It was written by a great-uncle of 
her father’s, Nathaniel Marsten, who had been graduated 
from Rhode Island College in 1790. She had been told 
that he died, in middle age, “melancholy.” 

He had decided to study law, in opposition to his 
mother’s desire that he should become a minister of the 
gospel ; he gave up the law, taught school in Yarmouth 
several years, then returned to his old home, this very 
house, and died, after a few years of mild and melan- 
choly interest in the life about him. 

Her uncle had told her this one day when she ex- 
pressed surprise at finding an apple tree in the pine 
woods ; it was a huge tree, and the apples scattered on 
the ground under it were of a pleasant flavor. 

“ That’s Uncle Nathaniel’s tree, ” he said ; “tradi- 
tion says so. There’s a journal of his somewhere, and 
a few of his books in the garret.” 

After Aunt Martha’s steps had gone safely down the 

o 


210 


GOLDENROD FARM 


steep stairway, Elizabeth seated herself to read the old 
journal she had discovered. 

“Anno Domini 1803, May 9. Remarkably cool 
this morning. The puddles were frozen and the ground 
covered with snow. Captain Burbank arrived yester- 
day from the West Indies. 

“11th. Sowed onion seed to-day in the garden, and 
covered it with brush to keep the hens off. Olive and 
her husband at the house to-day. They admired our 
new house. The garret is large and roomy. Father 
built it the year I graduated. We were all born, all 
ten of us, in the old story -and-a-half house twenty feet 
from our side door. Levi lives there now with his wife 
and two children. The baby has crooked feet. Dr. 
Burbank says there is no help for such feet. 

“ 12th. Ccehm serenum hodie. I have done a little 
farming work to-day, but great part of the time incer- 
tus sum quid agam and my common inquiry is quid 
consilii capian f I have some hope that my head and 
eyes are getting better, but what I shall do for some 
constant, profitable, agreeable employment I know not. 
To be idle is to be miserable, and what may be the con- 
sequences of an idle life who can tell? To have no 
agreeable company and but little conversation is a dis- 
agreeable life. ? ^ * 

“ I should think so ! ” ejaculated the reader. 

“ 13th. Father said to-day that Captain Titcomb 
wore pantaloons the year this house was built. No 
more breeches and wigs when pantaloons came in. 


AN INSPIRATION 


211 


“ 14th. Coelum serenum hodie. Planted fifty small 
potatoes to-day in the north side of the garden in six- 
teen hills, generally three in a hill. Saw a pretty girl 
in the pasture gathering box berries or some herbage ; 
looked wistfully at her, but did not have any conversa- 
tion with her. When I came in, Seba said Mary Ham- 
ilton was over to see her relations, the Burbanks, and 
had been in our pasture. She had come to the door to 
talk awhile and marm had given her gingerbread and 
buttermilk. She gave her a gingerbread man and told 
her it looked like me. She said she saw a man plant- 
ing potatoes that looked like a big gingerbread man. 
The Hamiltons live on Great Chebeague. I suppose 
she came here in somebody’s schooner. Her hair was 
down her back and like shining gold in the sun. She 
was singing a hymn while she picked the berries. I 
told marm to-day that I could not be what her heart 
was set on, a minister. I do not believe enough. 
Afterward she went upstairs, and when she came down 
I saw her face. 

“Mary Hamilton’s father owns a schooner. It was 
built at one of our shipyards. 

“ This much for to-day. A day gone into eternity. 

“ 15th. Bene me liabeo. The day on which Christ 
arose from the dead and is to be kept in commemoration 
of that great event. Dressed in the forenoon, but did 
not go to meeting. Dr. Burbank came to see Levi’s 
child at noon. That girl came with him in his chaise. 
I looked up from my book to see her standing on the 
grass in front of Levi’s door. She was dressed with 


212 


GOLDENROD FARM 


taste. Her hair is red ; the front is more yellow than 
red and turned back over the red. It curls and was 
twisted up in the back. She laughed a great deal when 
she talked, but her face was sad when she saw Levi’s 
baby. Levi’s wife brought the child out to her. She 
kissed it. ‘ Poor baby,’ she said. 

“ I opened my window, although it was cold. I 
wanted to hear what she would say. 

‘ ‘ * Life is rough enough for strong feet ; what will 
you do with your poor feet ? ’ 

‘ 4 It was a queer thing for a laughing, saucy girl to 
say. 

‘ ‘ The big gingerbread man hid himself when she 
looked up. 

“ 16th. In multum diem cubni hodie. I feel pretty 
well this morning and the weather is beautiful ; but 
incertus sum quid agam. I have planted thirty small 
potatoes (shall I ever plant anything beside but small 
potatoes ?) to-day on the southeast side of the garden, 
and some cucumber seeds in a box. 

“ To-day, while I was out with my gun for a rabbit, I 
shot an old squaw. She was stooping over and I did 
not see her. She was not hurt much. Marm tied up 
her arm and gave her five yards of calico father bought 
in Portland. She asked for rum. Marm does not like 
to use rum. 

‘ ‘ She says my grandfather bought this land with a 
hogshead of rum. Rum is not a good foundation for a 
new home in a new country. I never drink it. My 
head is worse after it. I have much more time than I 


AN INSPIRATION 


213 


know what to do with. What use in the world is a 
gingerbread man but to be eaten ? I am not willing to 
be eaten, excepting by — but that is foolhardiness. 

4 4 17th. Levi has now gone southward in his schooner, 
4 Mary Ann. ’ And Allen has gone to Penobscot in the 
4 Nancy/ I have been preparing the ground for beets 
and carrots this afternoon. Nothing remarkable has 
happened to-day. I guess the red-haired girl has gone 
home. I am ashamed to ask my sister Seba about her, 
or Charlotte Burbank. Parson Lancaster and a man 
and woman from Portland lodged at our house last 
night. He talked about Parson Smith of glorious 
memory. Marm looked at me. I could not look at 
her. He asked me what kind of a man I was making 
of myself. I did not dare to say before marm’s eyes 
‘a gingerbread man,’ so I did not reply. I am tall 
and broad-shouldered. I have heard myself called a 
handsome man. College life, with all its terrible temp- 
tations to evil courses, did not draw me into wicked- 
ness. 

4 ‘Folks do not understand how my head aches and 
how poor my eyes are. Father scolds marm and says 
she encourages me in idleness. Some folks came to-day 
a visiting. They said Mary Hamilton is going to 
marry a young Portland man who is ambitious and has 
a chance to make money and rise in the world. Peter 
Young had our chaise to-day to go to Mr. Martin’s. 

4 4 Wrote a bill of sale to-day for Levi’s boat. Bene 
me habeo hodie. And now the day draws toward a 
close. 


214 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ 19th. I was out last evening considerable, and 
minus belle habeo hodie. P. Young brought home our 
chaise this morn. 

Our days are transient, few, and vain, 

Made up of misery, woe, and pain ; 

Hope keeps our spirits up 
And mingles joy in sorrow’s cup. 

“ Simeon Loring brought up potatoes to plant to-day. 

Vesperascit. 

“20th. Sukey Wire was at our house to-day. She 
said the Portland man is going to marry Mary Hamil- 
ton. His name is Amzi Cleeves. She heard Mary tell 
Charlotte Burbank so. Sukey was in the kitchen ; the 
door was open into the sitting room where Charlotte 
and Mary were talking and spinning.” 

The excited reader of the yellowed manuscript 
dropped the book into her lap with a cry of pleasure. 
“ I have found my great-grandmother at last. I have 
heard her speak. I know she was the red-haired girl.” 

She read on eagerly : 

“21st. I assisted Uncle David and Keuben Cutter in 
loading their carts with rum. The air is very clear and 
serene, the wind northerly, and the sun shines with 
great splendor. 

Had I a loving, tender wife 
To ease my mind and bless my life, 

With whom delighted I could talk, 

And if I would, could take a walk. 


AN INSPIRATION 


215 


“22d. Marm went to the meeting in the forenoon. 
Several girls belonging to the Islands called in to get a 
drink as they were going home after meeting. Seba went 
down to their boat with them. I was too bashful, being 
only a gingerbread man. 

‘ ‘ I wish I had spunk enough to show her that I am as 
much of a man as her city man. He has not been 
through college, I am bound to believe. 

“24th day of May, Tuesday. Cloudy, dull weather 
this morning. The girls are coming to quilt at Levi’s 
house. I think I shall watch them from the window ; 
perhaps I can summon courage to take their horses 
around to the stable. Uncle David came last night 
and asked me to go to his home and post his books to- 
day. I could not refuse for the sake of a red-haired 
girl and a quilting party, especially as he has told marm 
I was idle and lazy and not worth my salt, if I had 
graduated from Rhode Island College. What have I 
done since? Studied law one year and given it up. 
My poor head and eyes ! 

“25th. Election day. Rode up to Uncle Young’s 
in the chaise with marm. Saw Joe’s wife and spent 
some time in her company. Who should come in but 
my red-haired girl. 

“Joe’s wife introduced us ; told her I had been to 
college. I was glad I had my best clothes on. She 
talked and Joe’s wife talked. Women always have 
something to say to each other. They did not talk to 
me. Mary Hamilton wore a green dress. She said 
she had been after May flowers. 


216 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ Joe’s wife asked her when she was going to Port- 
land. They both laughed. 

“ I felt my heart stand still. I wished she would say 
something. 

‘ ‘ I cut off some young shoots a week or ten days ago 
from the body of an apple tree and stuck three of them 
into the ground. I have observed since that they are 
alive and leaving out. 

“26th. Cubui ad serum usque diem quod minus belle 
habeo. The fields and pastures are covered with green, 
the trees begin to blossom, herbs and flowers emit their 
odors, the sun shines with splendor, all is cheerful and 
gay. I went up to Uncle David’s after breakfast and 
spent the day in writing for him ; came home just at 
night and met Charlotte Burbank and the girl who is 
going to Portland. They both said ‘ good-evening. ’ 
I suppose I said ‘ good-evening, ’ also. 

“ Thus another day is gone never to return. 

“December 1, Thursday. Thanksgiving Day. A 
rainy day with southerly wind. Levi got home last 
night from Boston. His wife and himself and chil- 
dren came to dinner. I did not go to meeting, nor 
was it hardly practicable, because of the great ram. 
Seba said Mary H. was at church in the Burbank pew. 

“ December 24. Last night the snow fell about two 
inches deep. Before that the ground was entirely bare. 
Yesterday Perez discharged his cargo at our wharf and 
Levi took in part of it. In the spring I recorded 
deeds of pews in the Town book ; worked two days. I 
have had no pay yet. Prcebat sero quam nunquam. 


AN INSPIRATION 


217 


(I would like to buy a ring for her with that money.) 
In India they often bury money and put themselves to 
death to prevent its being found. Perhaps I am bury- 
ing myself, which is worse than burying money. 

“ 27th May, 1804. Worked in the garden to-day; 
sowed some pepper seeds and prepared the ground for 
onions. Went into Levi’s a little while. She told me 
that Mary H. is not married yet. Mary H. has made 
the baby with crooked feet a red dress with white spots 
in it. 

“Visited my little apple trees and found them alive 
and flourishing. Is there a promise for me in them ? 
Will something live that I do ? Dr. Burbank was 
buried to-day. Wind southward. 

“28th. Tackled the horse and chaise this morning 
for marm to ride. Walked through the fields and visited 
my apple trees. My eyes seem to be disordered so that 
I cannot plainly discern small objects, nor hardly see 
to make a pen. 

No perfect bliss on earth for men 
Whose lives are three-score years and ten, 

To work and eat, to hope and fret, 

To find that life eludes us yet. 

“30th. Monday, fair and pleasant. Allen arrived 
to-day from Boston. He gave me an old newspaper, 

‘ The Boston Gazette and The County Journal.’ The 
date is February 25, 1788. 

“It is very interesting reading. We do not see the 
Portland paper very often. 


218 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ The first Portland paper was printed 1785. 

“ There was a touching letter in the Boston paper. 

“ ‘Messrs. Printers : I am one of the sufferers by the 
late great Fire. I learn that the Marquis de la Fayette 
has given another Hundred Guineas for our Belief. I 
have not received my Dividend though in the Greatest 
W ant. If you know what hinders please to inform me 
and you will command my gratitude . 9 

“No name is signed. 

‘ ‘ I wonder if he found the assistance he asked ? I 
will save the newspaper. When I am gone some one 
may care for it.” 

That was the mouse-eaten, faded newspaper she 
had found in the chest. That was one of the things 
Mother Marsten’s peddler didn’t get for his fifty cents. 

“ 31st. Went up to Uncle David’s in the forenoon 
and wrote for him. I received one dollar for all the 
writing I have done for him lately. (Not enough to 
buy her a wedding ring.) 

‘ ‘ Thus ends the month of May. 

“June 1. My apple trees seem to wither and I fear 
they will die. Saw Charlotte Burbank and Mary H. 
sitting in the chamber window and talking merrily. 

“The Burbanks are building a new house. The 
old house will be the kitchen and kitchen chamber ; 
the new house, two stories, will be in front.” 

“And that’s Shar’s house now!” exclaimed Eliza- 
beth aloud. “There’s nothing new about it now.” 

‘ ‘ We expected company this afternoon but they did 
not come,” she read on. 


AN INSPIRATION 


219 


“If those girls talked about me, what would they 
say ? ‘ He went to college and came home to plant 

apple trees that died.’ 

“ 2d June. I hoed some potatoes in the garden this 
afternoon. 


Too long I’ve stayed at home 
And whiled away the time ; 

Business unsought will seldom come, 

I’ll sail to another clime. 

“ Levi’s vessel is on the way to Liverpool. He 
grieved to leave his wife. 

“5th June, Sunday. I went to meeting all day. 
The discourse was somewhat pathetic in the afternoon. 
It was about reaping what a man sows. 

“She was with the Burbanks in their pew. In the 
revival that swept over the country she was converted. 
I was not converted. Marm was sorry. 

4 ‘ A boat bound to Portland stopped at our wharf 
to-day. What would I do if I should go to Portland? 

‘ ‘ Go into business like Amzi Cleeves ? 

“Roll on days and months, ye cannot fly too fast 
while I am idle. 

“8th. I went to the Island, killed a rabbit; worked 
a little in the garden, and so forth. 

“23d. Read Cowper’s Task and Buchan. Re- 
ceived twenty-two dollars and eighty-nine cents of 
John Hays and gave him his note. I have now about 
thirty -three dollars in cash. 

‘ ‘ I wonder how much Amzi Cleeves has. 


220 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“With this money and my college education what 
can I do ? But, my head, my eyes. In the Bible the 
boy said, ‘ My head, my head.’ And he died. 

‘ ‘ I have conceived a hope of benefiting my health 
by Peruvian bark which I saw recommended by Bu- 
chan. 

“29th. I went to Falmouth to see Mr. Witteman 
ordained. A large convention of people. They had 
one wind and three stringed instruments. 

“ Marm looked at me when we got home. I suppose 
she thought she would like to see me ordained. I am 
the youngest of all her children. 

‘ ‘ August 1 . I have been absent by water about a 
month, in which time I have been to Bangor and some 
other towns on the Penobscot River, thence to Boston, 
Roxbury, and Charlestown. 

“ August 5. Looking over Moore’s Navigation, con- 
versing and doing chores. I have received only three 
crowns this summer. Pater is at work on Stonybrook 
bridge. 

“ October 1. I screwed up my courage. I wrote to 
her. I asked her to marry me. Her dear letter was 
very kind. She was surprised. She said she did not 
know me. Nothing could make any difference for she 
expected to marry the best man in the world on Octo- 
ber fifteenth, Amzi Cleeves. She was going to live in 
Portland. She was sorry; she hoped I would find a 
wife ten times better than she was. 

“ He is a member of a church, which I am not, and 
other things which I am not. 


AN INSPIRATION 


221 


“26th. Sunday. I stayed at home all day. Fre- 
quently I obey an impulse that I know not from whence 
it is. 

If 1 am right, 0 teach my heart 
Still in the right to stay ; 

If I am wrong, thy grace impart 
To find the better way. 

“18th. A quilting party at Levi’s. She did not 
come. 

“24th September, 1805. Last evening we received 
information of a vessel cast away on the Massachusetts 
coast. By the description it appears to be Levi’s. 
All on board lost. I went into Levi’s to-day and sat 
still by the fire. The baby with crooked feet sat on 
the rug. I did not speak to Levi’s wife. 

“March, 1806. I have neglected my journal alto- 
gether, having been engaged in teaching school in Fal- 
mouth. I went to the Corner to-day and returned home 
on the ice. Incertus sum quid again. To-day, Dr. Bur- 
bank, son of old Dr. Burbank, gave me lavender for my 
heart. He opened a book one hundred years old and 
read to me that lavender was given for heart trouble 
so long ago as that book was written. 

“ March 29, 1806. This evening I was called to wit- 
ness the death of my dear mother, who died about eight 
o’clock. She was sixty years five months and twenty- 
nine days old. She had medical assistance, the prayers 
of her friends, and good attendance in her last sickness, 
and appeared to die easy. But her appointed time 
having come, she could not be detained any longer.” 


222 


GOLDENROD FARM 


This was the last entry. She had seen his grave in 
the village churchyard. He had lived ten years after 
his mother died. All that was left was this record, the 
apple tree among the pines, and his love for the red- 
haired girl. 

She laid the yellow leaves against her cheek. The 
rain was beating heavily against the panes. Not caring 
to dig deeper to-day into the treasures of the sea chest, 
she laid the manuscript back in the till, on top of the 
Boston newspaper, and dropped the cover. 

The record of such a life made her blue. She won- 
dered if her grandmother ever thought again of the 
gingerbread man and his strange wooing. 

She knew how a girl’s heart ached, sometimes ; this 
was the story of a man’s heartache, his secret wail over 
a fruitless life. But these last unrecorded years ; in 
them might he not have learned Christ ? 

He was not ashamed in heaven that she had opened 
these stained leaves ; he too looked with larger eyes 
upon the hearts of people who were led by God’s small 
happenings. The book had been kept . for her all these 
years in its hidingplace. She would tell Shar that 
another Charlotte Burbank had known her great-grand- 
mother, as Shar knew her, and perhaps those two girls 
walked and talked together as these two girls did. 

“ I know — I know what I’ll do ! ” she exclaimed, 
springing to her feet with the suddenness of her inspira- 
tion. 4 ‘I’ll build a house on Goldenrod Ledge for 
crippled children — children like the baby with crooked 
feet, and I’ll call it, ‘ The Mary Hamilton Home. 1 99 


AN INSPIRATION 


223 


In her ecstasy she hugged herself and danced about 
the old garret. She must speed away in spite of the 
rain to tell Sister Deborah. 

She hastened down the narrowest stairs her feet had 
ever trod and along the large kitchen chamber to an 
open door. In this room she heard Shar’s sweet con- 
tralto as she put the room in order after the departure 
of a family of four. 

It was the chamber in the house that Elizabeth 
loved ; in her childhood Isabel and herself had shared 
it in their visits to Goldenrod Farm. The gray painted 
floor was scattered over with rugs, the three large 
windows had a fine prospect (one looked toward Levi’s 
house where the quilting was when the red-haired girl 
came), and the wide fireplace was filled with the boughs 
of the balsam fir. There were two beds, a large, red, 
high-posted one, and a small modern bedstead of ash. 

“ Why, Shar, how nice it looks ! ” she exclaimed. 

“ And how cold and frozen you look. Where have 
you been ? ’ 9 

“ Up garret. My teeth are almost chattering.” 

“In that thin dress! Without a shawl. I heard 
Mrs. Marsten wondering if you had a shawl on.” 

“ I didn’t know I was cold. I don’t believe I am. 
I have a history to tell you, and I’ve found something 
to do with my tumbledown farm.” 

“Up in the garret ? ” 

“ All up in the garret.” 

“Do go down into the kitchen and get warm. I 
didn’t know you could look so pale.” 


224 


GOLDEKROD FARM 


“ I suppose you are busy now.” 

“ I shall be busy till four o’clock, then I’ll go over 
to your room and you can tell me. I suspect it’s cold 
over there.” 

“ I’ll wrap up if I’m cold. I have to write to the 
girls ; I must congratulate poor Cyn ; be sure to come 
over about four.” 

“ Don’t go out in the rain bare-headed,” Sliar called 
after her ; “ it’s growing w T orse and worse.” 

The rain was growing worse and worse ; she could 
not go to Faith Cottage in such a driving rain ; she 
would keep still and think and write her letters, and 
look for something to help her with the Mary Hamilton 
Home. This should be firm, on a foundation ; she 
would not “ make haste.” 

She could tell Isabel, if she were not too crowded 
with thoughts about the wedding to care what was 
happening to her little sister. 

If she only might congratulate Cyn. No one t had 
congratulated her ; it was hard for sisters to grow wide 
apart when their deepest experiences were given to them. 


CHAPTER XYI 


A GOOD HOPE 

If God’s Spirit abide with thee, all things w T ill be easy from the 
Spirit and love ; for there is nothing which makes the soul so 
courageous and venturesome for anything as a good hope. — St. 
Chrysostom. 

Without vision no man can hope to enjoy and have a strong 
life. 

T HE rain dashed against the window ; the wind 
howled as in winter ; the water of the bay was 
lashed into white waves ; her pine chamber was a place 
to shiver in, chilled as she was already. Her feet were 
wet, and she forgot, in the interest and demand of the 
letters she must write, to change her shoes. She threw 
a shawl about her shoulders and gathered her writing 
materials. Ever afterward she thought of those letters 
as a part of her chilliness ; she shivered within and 
without ; her letters were not cordial ; she even said 
something spiteful about Mr. Lefferts, repeating to 
Isabel something he had quoted from Ruskin : ‘ ‘ Being 
now fifty-one years old and not likely to change my 

mind upon any important subject ” 

Mr. Lefferts was not fifty -one ; but perhaps he 
thought he had as good a right to say it as Ruskin, 
only Ruskin’ s mind was on the side of the best said and 
done. She wrote her about their great-grandmother 

P 225 


226 


GOLDENROD FARM 


and her thought of a home to be built in memory of 
her love for the baby with crooked feet. When her 
letters were finished it lacked an hour of the late dinner 
bell. After a prayerful moment she arose and wrote 
in pencil, on the pine board near the window, in her 
small exact hand, that could be read as easily as print : 
“ Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give 
thee the desires of thine heart/ ’ Then the date: 
“ September 5, 18 — 

As the plain lettering stared at her with its tell-tale 
date she hurriedly pinned over the writing a poem, 
printed on a slip of paper, that had been partly hidden 
under a pile of papers. That was better ; still the poem 
had its own story. The room would be empty when 
she left it ; in a few days the dear pine cottage would 
be locked ; winter storms would be about it and the 
winter sunshine on it until she came again. And when 
she came again she would read her promise and know 

What would she know? If anybody cared besides 
herself, if God cared, for the thought that had come 
to her up in the garret. Shivering, although wrapped 
in her shawl, she seated herself again ; this thought 
was not born of discontent ; she hoped it had its birth 
in her delight in the Lord. 

She remembered reading about Austin Phelps. He 
was a good man ; his life was lived on the spiritual 
heights, in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. His 
‘ ‘ Life ’ 9 was among her books ; she opened it and 
found the page. She read : “ I must tell you one of 


A GOOD HOPE 


227 


my follies. You know my superstition about direct 
messages from the Bible. I cannot defend it, yet I do 
get comfort from it. Well, yesterday, when you left 
me, I felt as if the bottom of the universe had fallen 
out and all of us were sinking into the original chaos. 
I groaned in spirit. Half mechanically I took up my 
Bible and begged for something to hold me up, and I 
opened to that very gem of the whole book (Ps. 91) : 
‘ He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most 
High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. ’ 
Is it all humbug ? I am weak enough to be unable to 
part with it. All goes right to-day, anyhow.’ ’ 

Was it a folly? she argued. If it were, it was one 
of the weak things that God had chosen. It was not 
superstition, unless it were superstition to believe that 
God answered prayer. She could ‘ 4 defend ’ ’ it. Was 
not his storehouse filled with treasure to be thrown wide 
open for such a need ? To knock at the door was all 
she had to do, all Austin Phelps had to do. Sitting 
with the Bible in her hand, she knocked at the door. 

Then she opened it where God moved her to open 
it. There it was, her treasure. In all the world, in 
all the universe, in all God’s universe of truth was 
there nothing that fitted her need like this ? She was 
satisfied. She was satisfied because God had given her 
the best he had for this time. She read where the 
angel prayed. 

‘ ‘ And the Lord answered the angel that talked with 
me with good words and comfortable words. ’ ’ 

“ Then I lifted up mine eyes and saw ” 


228 


GOLDENROD FARM 


It was all truth, no illusion. The Lord’s answer 
was given to the man. 

‘ ‘ My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread 
abroad. ’ ’ 

Through prosperity, not always in poverty, was his 
work done. She had so often and so really put herself 
in Shar’s place, that she had begun to think it was only 
the poor who were blessed and used in the work of the 
world. That had been one of her illusions. 

All through the vision the man watched and listened. 
At the end of the vision was a promise : ‘ 4 And this 
shall come to pass if ye will diligently obey the voice 
of the Lord your God.” 

There was always something to do : watch, listen, 
obey, and obey diligently, the voice of God. 

“Then said I ” Ah, he asked questions also. 

The end of the vision was the doing of God’s work. 
Who would answer her questions? Who knew? Who 
had answered this time? The book. This man had 
the angel, this young man — she learned that he was a 
young man in the next chapter. 

She was young, not a prophet set apart, only a 
woman, but she was just as real as a prophet to God 
and to herself. There could be no illusion if she 
obeyed diligently. She had her orders in the book. 
Ought she to go to her sisters ? Ought she to place 
herself under Parson Hamilton’s teaching and go into 
the work he considered best for her ? Her summer had 
been good ; her winter would be better. 

On her trunk was a small leather-bound volume ; 


A GOOD HOPE 


229 


before her stay at Faith Cottage she had brought it from 
a pile of old books on the floor in a corner of the garret. 

It was an autobiography ; she had become interested in 
the man who gave himself to work among his neigh- 
bors ; then his work spread, and at last became so 
unique that he was requested, illiterate as he was, to 
write the story of his life and work. 

She took it up while waiting for the dinner bell ; 
after turning several leaves, something attracted her 
and she read : 

‘ ‘ I remember my wife told me that after she had 
once been fervently pouring out her soul to God in be- 
half of our children, on rising from her knees, the 
Bible being on the table before her, she opened at these 
words, which she regarded at the time as being given 
her in answer to prayer : ‘ One shall say I am the 
Lord’s, and another shall call himself by the name of 
Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand unto 
the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel.’ 

“ The Lord granted her the desire of her heart, for 
she lived to see her three children converted to God.” 
W ould Austin Phelps call this superstition ? She 
did not believe God allowed that praying mother to be 
comforted and answered by an illusion. It was so long 
ago ; life long ago was like life to-day. 

The dinner bell brought her to her feet. With rub- 
bers, umbrella, her cap, and shawl, she crossed the lawn 
to the house. Mrs. Wentworth had removed her rub- 
bers and stood on the piazza scolding about the storm. * 
‘ ‘ So early in the season. It will send everybody home. ’ ’ 


230 


GOLDENROD FARM 


Shar could not tempt Elizabeth to eat ; and nobody 
could tempt her to talk, 

“You have taken cold/’ Shar said, when Elizabeth 
refused the dessert. 

‘ ‘ I will go into the kitchen and get warm. ’ ’ 

As she huddled over the stove, still wrapped in her 
shawl, Aunt Martha said energetically: “Elizabeth, 
you did not do as I said, and I forgot to go up again 
and see after you. It is too cold for you in the cot- 
tage ; you go right upstairs in the room Mrs. Dayton 
left and Howard will make a blazing fire on the hearth 
for you. You must keep that room as long as you 
stay. ’ ’ 

“ I don’t know what will happen to me next,” said 
Elizabeth ; “ and for the first time in my life I don’t 
know what I want to happen.” 

“I almost don’t want to know,” admitted Shar, 
who was going home to-day, as the Goldenrod Farm 
“season ” was over. Shar had something to decide. 

‘ ‘ Elizabeth, I do want to be a good daughter, ’ ’ she 
said, when she went up to Elizabeth’s new chamber to 
say good-bye for a day. It was only for a day, for 
Elizabeth must come to her every day. 

‘ ‘ Keep true to your best self, ’ ’ advised Elizabeth ; 
“ a girl has a right to her best self, for that is God’s 
ideal of her. Don’t fall below, Shar, if you can help 
it.” 

“ That’s what I am afraid of, that I can’t help it.” 

“ I would help it,” said Elizabeth. 

“It is so trying,” bemoaned Shar; “just when I 


A GOOD HOPE 


231 


was trying to feel different and to do little thoughtful 
things at home, to keep at work in the room with her — 
and I used to avoid that — to plan to do one thing while 
she did another ; and now to have this come between 
us. Her heart is as much set on it as mine isn’t. It 
makes me feel like running away from home. The 
worst of it is he is a good man in everybody’s eyes, but 
he rubs against me so ! Besides being a good man he is 
not one thing I wish him to be. I don’t like his eyes 
w T hen he looks at me, or his thick, curly hair, or the way 
he drawls, and he never read a book through in his 
life,” she ended dolefully. 

“ It isn’t so dreadful to me,” sympathized Elizabeth, 
shivering over the fire her Cousin Howard had kindled 
on the hearth, “because I would free myself from him 
and end it. Don’t you suppose every girl has to refuse 
somebody ? ’ ’ 

“ It is my mother,” said Shar. “I want to be a 
real daughter to her. She will not want me at home 
if I disobey in this, and I hate the shoe-shop.” 

“ Be true to yourself,” counseled Elizabeth again. 

( 1 Must I choose myself before my mother ? ’ ’ were 
Shar’s last words. 

“I’d be true, anyway,” said Elizabeth. 

In the evening she wrote a note to Shar. 

She asked her to read the chapter she herself had 
read that morning, and to watch, listen, obey, and to 
remember that if she were not true to herself in decid- 
ing her vexed question, she could not be true to the 
man she decided to give herself to, ending : “I know ; 


232 


GOLDENROD FARM 


I have been through it. Not that we have to be con- 
scious always of our love, but we are in it, like the 
air we breathe ; when you breathe him, marry him.” 
After her note was written, she sat before the fire in 
the wooden rocker she had loved to cuddle up into in 
the days of her childhood. 

How queer it was for her to think that if to-night 
should be the last time she would ever sit before this 
fire, she would like it to be a memorial night. How 
could she make it so ? 

Then, as she twisted her ring, Mark’s ring, on her 
finger, she remembered the day that she took it off 
after a long row with Professor Burbank, to wonder 
how her hand w T ould look without it, and the sudden 
darkness — it had been like a flash of blackness before 
her eyes ; she had been faint as she put it on again. 

Sister Deborah had said that in that time when she 
sought another comforter than the one true Comforter 
that Christ prayed the Father to send, she had grieved 
the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. 

And because he was grieved he had to bring her to 
himself. Pier discipline was punishment as well as 
teaching. She believed every word of that. She 
knew she had grieved him by not remembering him 
and by choosing another way to be comforted. She 
opened her Bible and read in the firelight : 

“ And I will pray the Father and he shall give you 
another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever ; 

even the Spirit of truth 99 

Then she pondered : Christ had prayed for the Com- 


A GOOD HOPE 


233 


forter for her in her comfortless time and she had not 
cared. She had sought a human comforter. Christ’s 
Comforter would have stayed with her forever. 

He was the Spirit of truth, with him she would 
have suffered no illusions. She would have seen 
clearly. 

She had grieved him ; her illusions had been her 
sorrow and her punishment. 

But now, the second touch of the Lord’s hand was 
upon her eyes ; she saw clearly because he had given 
her his Comforter, the very Spirit of truth. He would 
abide with her forever. 

In her sorrow she had sought a human comforter ; in 
her sin she sought and found the Divine Saviour. The 
firelight shone upon eyes and lips of peace. She was a 
“ most -surely -believer ” with the “with you forever” 
peace. 

“ Elizabeth, dear child, not gone to bed yet? And 
the fire almost out. I have brought you hot lemonade, 
and I’ll tuck you up in bed.” 

“ Aunt Martha,” lifting her arms to Aunt Martha’s 
broad shoulders. 

“Well, child.” 

“ I am so hot and so cold, and my head aches and 
my throat is sore.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


SHAR 

Each little, thronging star that shines 
Below the eternal throne, 

Amidst the crowd of burning lines 
Revolves and burns alone. 

Upon its earthly pathway hurled, 

So every human heart, 

Even as that lone and burning world, 

Aspires and beats apart. 

Mysterious star, and heart as well, 

We little know, alas, 

But God can look through both and tell 
The smallest things that pass. 

C HARLOTTE.” Mrs. Burbank was displeased 

when she addressed her elder daughter by her 
full name and Shar knew it. 

“ Yes, mother/ ’ said Shar very quietly. 

Shar was closing the parlor door ; she stood in the 
entry with a lamp in her hand. 

‘ ‘ Has he gone ? ’ ’ 

“ Yes’m.” 

The voice came from the head of the stairs ; Mrs. 
Burbank was bending over the stair railing. 

4 ‘ What did you let him go so early for ? ’ ’ 

“ He didn’t want to stay forever/’ said Shar, with an 
attempt at a laugh. 

234 


SHAR 


235 


“ You needn’t turn it off with a laugh.” 

Mrs. Burbank seated herself on the upper step of 
the stairs — it was a short flight ; at this moment Shar 
wished it were a long one, so long that her mother 
could not look down into her face. 

She was flushed and tearful ; it had been hard 
enough to refuse a good man and hurt him, as she felt 
that she had hurt this man, without being brought 
face to face with her accuser. 

‘ ‘ Did you refuse him again ? ’ ’ 

“ Yes.” 

“ What did you do it for ? ” 

“ Because I had to. I had to tell the truth.” 
“You’ll die an old maid as sure as you live.” 

“ I am very sure I live,” said Shar, with another 
attempt at a laugh. 

“ What’s the matter with him, I’d like to know.” 
“Mother, I’ve told you before,” exclaimed Shar 
distressed ; “I don’t like to talk about it.” 

‘ ‘ But I do, ’ ’ moving two steps nearer the girl with 
flushed cheeks and tremulous lip. 

“ Isn’t he a good man ? ” she persisted. 

“ Oh, yes,” said Shar wearily. 

1 ‘ And a smart man ? ’ ’ 

“ I suppose so. But he’s exactly twenty years older 
than I am.” 

“ As if that made a difference,” in a scornful voice. 
“ Your father was twenty -two years older than I was.” 
‘ ‘ But I want to wait. ’ ’ 

“ Wait ! ” still in the scornful voice — “ wait to grow 


236 


GOLDENROD FARM 


gray and wrinkled. When I was your age I was a 
widow with two children, and married again at twenty- 
four. W ait ! ? ? 

Shar was twenty -one, but she felt herself to be years 
older than her mother was to-night. 

“ Girls do not marry so early now. I want to teach 
first. ’ ’ 

“ Teach ! As if you hadn’t waited long enough to 
teach, studying your eyes out every night with books. 
That’s no reason.” 

‘ ‘ There is no good reason in your eyes, ’ ’ said Shar, 
stepping away. 

“ Don’t go. I want to talk this thing out. It has 
been on the carpet long enough. He’s been coming to 
see you, or trying to, for three years.” 

“Yes,” assented Shar helplessly. 

Before that week at Faith Cottage she would have 
told her mother that she would not listen to another 
word, and w T ould have gone away with the lamp and 
left her in the dark sitting on the stairs. 

“You must have encouraged him, or he wouldn’t 
have kept on. And you call yourself a Christian girl. ’ ’ 

Had she encouraged him ? The thought had never 
entered her mind. 

“ You went to a picnic with him last summer. It is 
all the doings of these city people and that Elizabeth 
Marsten. I wish she would keep away from you. She 
has made you discontented enough with your home and 
your mother and now she has done this. Because she 
expects to make a fine marriage she needn’t teach you 


SHAH 


237 


to look down on a man who owns one -third of a good 
farm and a handsome house and a new barn.” 

“ Mother, you are unjust to her.” 

“ Of course I am, and to you too. Between Eliza- 
beth Marsten and that Faith Cottage you talk so much 
about, you have learned to despise your mother and dis- 
obey her good counsel. Alice is a good daughter.’ ’ 

4 ‘Mother, I cannot make you understand ; didn’t you 
love my father ? ’ ’ 

“ I suppose I did. I didn’t think about love. My 
mother wanted me to marry him, and I did, and he was 
a good husband to me. A girl who honors her mother 
may expect to be blessed.” 

“We may as well not talk any more.” 

“ I will talk more. A pretty thing to say to your 
mother. I will get at the bottom of this. Has some 
city fellow made you despise an honest farmer ? ’ ’ 

Shar was too proud to reply. 

“ Tell me.” 

“You know better.” 

“ Then what is the reason ? ’ ’ with impatient demand. 
“ I do not feel acquainted with him.” 

“You don’t have to. Your father never kissed me 
till after I was married.” 

“ I do not enjoy him. We do not like to talk about 
the same things. ’ ’ 

“ That will come in time. You would soon have 
enough to talk about.” 

‘ ‘ But, mother, I want to be happy when I am 
married. ’ ’ 


238 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ So you will be when you are married. How can 
you know until you are married ? I am wiser than 
you. I want to see you in a good home.” 

“ My home is good enough now.” 

‘ ‘ Then what do you want to go away and teach for ?’ ’ 
“ One reason is to earn money, I want to give you 

things you never have, and Alice ’ ’ 

“ We don’t want your things. I’d rather see you in 
that comfortable home settled for life than to have all 
you can earn for me all your lifetime. I am not like 

some mothers making a fuss over my children, but ” 

her voice trembled. She loved her. 

Shar believed at last that her mother loved her. If 
her mother loved her, what would she not do for her ? 

“ Oh, mother ! ” 

Shar burst into excited tears and sobbed like a child. 
All the evening she had been overwrought. 

“ There, there, don’t make a fuss. Go to bed and 
go to sleep. I know you are a good girl. Joe will 
come again and you can make it all right ; but I am 
sorry he will have to go to sleep with a heavy heart. ’ ’ 

“ Mother, mother,” called the voice of Shar’s step- 
father from the room above, ‘ ‘ let the young folks have 
their own way. Shar is all right.” 

With the lamp in her hand Shar opened the door of 
her sleeping room. Her sister Alice lay upon the bed 
with her face in the pillow. She lifted her head and 
the light from Shar’s lamp shone upon her face. 

“ I don’t care ; I heard every word mother said, and 
it’s all true. Joe is a good man, the best man in the 


SHAR 


239 


world, and you would have a lovely life. Why, he 
pets even the tiny chickens and never says a cross word 
to his sister, and she’s cranky and cross sometimes. I 
don’t see why the good things come to people who don’t 
want them ; and ’ ’ 

From sheer surprise Shar uttered no word. Alice 
was such a child, not twenty, and Joe Cummings was 
over forty ; he was grave and slow and she was as 
frolicsome as a kitten. 

“ There, I’ve said it, and I don’t care what you 
think. ’ ’ 

“ I don’t know what I think,” answered Shar ; “ but 
I know that I shall not marry him. I will go back to 
the shoe -shop first.” 

“ You may get a chance to teach yet, if it is so late 
in the season,” said Alice joyously. 

“ How bright the moon is to-night,” said Shar. 
1 * Have you been here in the moonlight ? ’ ’ 

“ I heard your voices downstairs and I couldn’t bear 
it any longer.” 

“ Don’t you go to bed with a heavy heart,” comforted 
Shar; “ I’ll tell mother I’ll never marry him. And 
I’ll prove to her that I am a good daughter too.” 

‘ * How ? ’ ’ 

“ There will be ways enough and years enough. I 
know father will be on my side.” 

Was there no work to do, no work for her to do? 
Her mother would gladly spare her ; to-night she had 
acknowledged it — her mother who loved her. She could 
teach girls how to be better daughters than she had 


240 


GOLDENROD FARM 


been. In the schoolroom she would be brought near 
to girls, nearer than to this girl who lay so still at her 
side, so still and so happy. 

She loved Alice better than she loved anybody in the 
world, better than she ever could love anybody, she be- 
lieved ; but Alice was not a Christian ; she had not 
helped her in that way, that way best of all. To-night, 
in her self-searching, her work at home seemed all a 
failure. If she had “encouraged” that good man, 
Joe Cummings, in that she was another failure ; per- 
haps she had in the days when things w r ent wrong be- 
tween her mother and herself, and his home appeared 
more attractive than the home she was born into. 
There was comfort in the world at this moment. Mr. 
Lefferts had not taken it from her ; she had been “ de- 
livered ’ ’ from one who did not believe. She had the 
comfort and went to sleep. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


BEAUTY AND WORK 

— Thy beauty, for it was perfect through my comeliness which 
I had put upon thee. 

And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us ; and 
establish thou the work of our hands upon us ; yea, the work of 
our hands establish thou it. 

4 ( TT OW does the sky look ? ’ ' inquired a voice from 

J-l the pillow. 

Miss Morse — Sister Deborah was called Miss Morse at 
Goldenrod Farm — stood at the window looking up into 
the sky. Elizabeth, as well as Shar’s sister, had been 
alone in the moonlight. 

“ There is a patch of deep, deep blue in it ; a great 
white cloud open at one end like the mouth of a huge 
rhinoceros, with the heavy, square upper jaw and the 
thinner lower jaw, and gliding slowly but surely down 
the monster’s throat is the great silver moon.” 

* 1 1 wish I could go to the window. ’ ’ 

“ To-morrow, perhaps.” 

“Will you stay there and tell me more about the 
sky?” 

“ Xow the moon is disappearing behind the cloud 
and the edges become rainbow-hued, a halo of soft, 
beautiful color ; the center of the cloud is dark and 
black.” 


Q 


241 


242 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ How beautiful ! ” with a happy sigh. 

Miss Morse stood quiet a long time, it appeared to her 
patient, for Elizabeth was restless and ready for talk. 

“ You haven’t told me about the water to-day.” 

“ I was at the shore when the tide was coming in. 
The sky was almost full of clouds ; heavy, white clouds 
and threatening dark grays chased each other across 
the blue ; and the changeful water was blue and light - 
green and gray and purple in turn.” 

“ You brought the beauty of it home in your face. 
Is to-day the fifteenth ? ’ ’ 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then it is ten days since I took cold. May I 
really sit up to-morrow ? ’ ’ 

You really may. ” 

1 ‘ If my pillows were higher I could see that splendid 
fire on the hearth. Now I see it on the walls and 
ceiling. ’ ’ 

Miss Morse arranged the pillows and Elizabeth lifted 
herself and sat up against them. 

“ You are too good to me.” 

“ Oh, no ; just good enough.” 

“ I like the fire, I like the moon, I like you, I like 
everything.” The voice was hardly like Elizabeth’s 
voice ; it was very weak, sometimes playful, often petu- 
lant. “ Yesterday I thought I would like to make my 
will ; now I think I will get up.” 

‘ ‘ That is the better way, ’ ’ said Miss Morse with a 
smile, tucking the edges of the pillow about Elizabeth’s 
shoulder. 


BEAUTY AND WORK 


243 


‘ ‘ Did you think I would die ? ’ ’ Elizabeth asked 
plaintively. 

“No.” 

“ Didn’t the doctor or anybody ? ” 

“ I think not. You are like Miss Cummings now ; 
you can date your life before and after you had pneu- 
monia.” 

“Well, I don’t think I’m like her in much else. 
Will you sit down by me and tell me everything that 
has happened — since I had pneumonia ? ’ ’ she ended, 
with a laugh very much like her own. 

“ Life has been very exciting,” began Miss Morse, 
thinking that her girl was very attractive when she was 
dependent and not self-assertive. 

“ It always is when I am not in it ; other people’s 
lives always are. Bring your chair close, please,” in 
the tone of a humored child. 

When the chair was brought close, and Elizabeth’s 
fingers, whiter and thinner than when they wrote to 
her sister in her pine chamber that stormy morning, 
were holding the plump hand so free in its service, 
Miss Morse said : “ ‘ Nothing happens more oddly than 
in this world,’ the proverb runs. Here I am who ex- 
pected at this date to be in New York, and here you 
are who expected to be in Paris or London or Flo- 
rence ’ ’ 

“And all because of a horseshoe nail,” answered 
Elizabeth; “ somebody didn’t putin a horseshoe nail 
and things went wrong, and I didn’t protect my ven- 
turesome self from the weather ” 


244 


GOLDENROD FARM 


44 And all went right,” finished Miss Morse. 

44 Anyway, it is right now,” said Elizabeth com- 
fortably. 44 1 have you and that fire. You haven’t 
told me anything. You have kept me so quiet ; I 
didn’t use to be quiet — before I had pneumonia.” 

Nurse and patient laughed like two schoolgirls ; 
Elizabeth said she was just happy enough to laugh at 
nothing. 

“Now, begin.” 

44 Then I’ll begin with myself. History begins with 
ourselves, doesn’t it? The storm frightened everybody 
away and we three women were left alone. Harry 
wrote urgently for Barbara and Agnes, saying he 
would find a pleasant boarding place for them, and his 
church had work for them, the work to which they had 
been trained. While we were packing, your Cousin 
Howard came for me, saying you had a serious cold; 
the doctor had said you must have a nurse, and the 
queen had issued her command for Sister Deborah.” 

44 Oh, no, not so bad as that,” explained Elizabeth; 
4 4 1 was only sick and dreadfully homesick, and wanted 
you.” 

44 1 came.” 

44 You dear thing!” with a loving squeeze of the 
plump fingers. 

44 And Faith Cottage was shut up for another win- 
ter. ’ ’ 

4 4 Did Barbara and Agnes like to go ? ” 

44 They expected to work somewhere ; Harry was 
taken with them, and said his church needed them. 


BEAUTY AND WORK 


245 


He will pay their salary, but they do not have to know 
that.” 

4 ‘ 1 have been lying here thinking what a failure I 
am.” 

“ You have been a success in pneumonia.” 

“Yes, but the cold did that; even that is to my 
disgrace. I believe I am tired and want to lie down. 
If you will read Isabel’s letter again, about the wed- 
ding, I’ll lie still and go to sleep.” 

The letter was very bright, full of doings, and goings, 
and places, and people ; Cynthia was a beautiful bride 
in a Worth costume, and the bridegroom never looked 
so like the “prince” Cyn used to call him. Cyn 
looked years younger, was absolutely radiant; it was 
easy to believe her the “ handsomest of the Gray sis- 
ters.” Isabel suggested that Elizabeth send a check 
for a wedding present, it was more portable than any- 
thing else, and the ‘ ‘ wedded pair ’ ’ had begun life with 
extravagant ideas. Mr. Lefferts was most kind to 
them all, of the greatest assistance. All she lacked to 
be perfectly happy was the presence of her little sister. 

Elizabeth asked for the letter and tucked it under 
her pillow. 

“I’m glad Cyn looked pretty. It has been rather 
hard on me to have four beautiful sisters ; they all have 
fine eyes, and such complexions — not a freckle among 
them,” she added dolefully. 

“ Oh, child, child,” her nurse said with a laugh. 

“ Oh, I am outgrowing it ; but I used to mind, es- 
pecially w r hen Cyn used to say she didn’t see what did 


246 


GOLDENROD FARM 


make me so ugly. I cannot love my new brother-in- 
law/ J she said, with a comical sigh. “ I wish Mrs. 
Wentworth might have been in the grand doings ; 
Mary is happy enough in keeping boarders and living 
on a farm, but his mother hasn’t anybody except Ju- 
lius, and now she hasn’t him.” 

‘ ‘ She has gone home ; did I tell you ? ’ ’ 

“ You said everybody had gone, and there was no- 
body on the piazza, and yourself the only stranger at 
the table. I forgot to think about her.” 

‘ 1 A friend has given her a position as saleswoman in 
Portland, in a large store; she has the ribbon counter. 
Mrs. Marsten was distressed, but her mother said she 
would be as happy as a queen to earn her own bread 
and butter again.” 

“I’d rather give the wedding check to her,” said 
Elizabeth. “ Oh, the sad vicissitude of things ! ” 

The fire died down into glowing embers. Elizabeth 
slept in the high -posted bed; sitting at the table Deb- 
orah Morse wrote a letter to Parson Hamilton. It 
was as easy and graceful as herself in conversation with 
him ; she had written him a brief note every day that 
she had been Elizabeth’s nurse. To-night she wrote 
that her patient was gaining, but it would be fully two 
weeks before she would be strong enough to bear the 
journey to Portland. She would write to Mrs. Hinch- 
ley to have both furnaces lighted, and to have every 
window in the house thrown open to the sun. The 
doctor had said that a sea voyage would not be a good 
thing for Elizabeth until spring. It would not be the 


BEAUTY AND WOKK 


247 


happiest and most healthful for her to stay alone with 
servants in that lonely house this winter ; what had he 
to propose ? Her sisters appeared to have no thought 
of returning ; the letters written by herself during the 
illness, at Elizabeth’s dictation, might change their 
plans. In a few weeks she would be her strong, bright 
self again (the attack had not been severe), and no 
doubt ready to conquer the world at a moment’s 
notice. Could he come for a day or two ? His pres- 
ence would give Elizabeth a lift that nothing else 
would. For herself she had no plan ; she was waiting 
orders. 

Then, in the firelight, she sat and mused ; she was 
weary to-night ; her patient in her convalescence was 
exacting, and it would be pleasant to have a home 
like other women, even like the hard-working women 
downstairs ; she would not say the happier women, for 
who could be happier than the woman who was follow- 
ing the plain directions of her Lord ? 

There was another letter to be written. One of her 
summer guests had written from New Jersey that she 
was “ cross and discouraged,” that life was not “ poet- 
ical ” as it was at Faith Cottage, but “ practical,” and 
she longed for summer again and another two weeks 
with Sister Deborah. 

Relighting her lamp, she took up her j)en again. 

‘ ‘ Dear, ’ ’ she wrote, ‘ ‘ if those two weeks failed to 
help you, do not count on another two weeks. Only 
the people who are helped do I care to have return. 
But you were helped. Your complaint comes out of 


248 


GOLDEKROD FARM 


your nerves. Shall I tell you how I was helped once ? 
I was in the country, staying with a friend who could 
not afford a servant. For love’s sake I was her serv- 
ant. One busy day, the kind when everything goes 
wrong — she had been ill all day — I could not find time 
to do the upstairs work until late in the afternoon ; not 
being accustomed to household labor I thought I had 
never been so tired in my life. I wondered how I 
should get downstairs after I had gone up. On the 
wall the black letters of a calendar stared at me, and I 
took breath and time to read the message of the day : 

‘ ‘ ‘ Let us run with patience the race set before us. ’ 

“ ‘ Set before us.’ Who set it before us ? 

“ Life is a long race to some of us, and hard, even 
when it is not long; we are not brave enough to choose 
anything so hard for ourselves, and we would refuse it 
from any one else excepting Him who sets it before us. 
Who sets it makes all the difference ; that gives the 
sweetness and reward to the patience. 

‘ ‘ It was an uplift ; it set me on my feet. I even felt 
like running in the race, not plodding along discour- 
aged. After the beds were made I went downstairs, be- 
lieving that he who set the race had set those w r ords on 
the wall for me to have the strength of, that very day. 

“ ‘ Oh, where is the sea?’ the fishes cried, 

As they swam the crystal clearness through, 

“ ‘ We’ve heard from of old of the ocean’s tide, 

And we long to look on the waters blue. 

The wise ones speak of the infinite sea ; 

Oh, who can tell if such there be?’ ” 


BEAUTY AND WOKK 


249 


Perhaps it was a weary letter and she should have 
waited till morning ; but to-morrow w T ould bring to- 
morrow’s work. 

“ Sister Deborah,” said the voice in the high -posted 
bedstead, “ I am so thirsty.” 

“ Yes, dear.” 

The family had retired ; through the silent house the 
nurse went with her lamp to the pump in the kitchen ; 
she pumped the water cool and brought it upstairs. 

Elizabeth drank the water, then, with an impulse 
she never afterward understood, threw both arms about 
Sister Deborah’s neck and said : “Dear Sister Deborah, 
will you marry Parson Hamilton? He loves you so.” 
She had dared and frightened Sister Deborah ; rather, 
she had dared and frightened herself. 4 ‘ I am so cold, ’ ’ 
she murmured sinking back on her pillow. 

Her nurse drew a warm comfortable from the foot of 
the bed and tucked her up in it like a baby ; her eyes 
were shut to keep the tears from showing so that she 
could not see Sister Deborah’s face. 

Sister Deborah went to her pile of letters on the 
table, selected one, and after standing a moment before 
the fire on the hearth, dropped it into the coals. 

It was stiff paper and did not light easily ; at last 
the flame caught it and it blazed. 

“ I am silly, perhaps,” thought Deborah Morse, 
watching the blaze. 


CHAPTER XIX 


OFFERINGS 

And when we dare not whisper 
A want that lieth dim, 

We say, “ Our Father knoweth,” 
And leave it all to him. 

For his great love has compassed 
Our nature, and our need. 

We know not ; but he knoweth, 
And he will bless indeed. 

Therefore, 0 Heavenly Father 
Give what is best to me, 

And take the wants unanswered 
As offerings made to thee. 


M RS. BURBANK beamed at the breakfast table ; 

her black hair was brushed back shiny and 
smooth, her cheeks were deep red, and her eyes large, 
black, brilliant ; the deep blue of her calico wrapper 
and clean white collar made her look, her husband told 
her, ‘ ‘ as pretty as a girl ’ ’ ; not either of her daughters 
could 4 4 hold a candle ’ ’ to her. 

“ We wouldn’t if we could,” Alice said laughingly. 
“ You come nearest,” said her father ; “when she 
was your age she was just like you.” 

‘ ‘ Shar takes her red head and blue eyes from her 
father,” said Mrs. Burbank, “and he wasn’t a bad- 
250 


OFFERINGS 


251 


looking man, either. I said I never would marry a 
red -headed man/’ and she laughed, “ and that’s what 
I got for saying it. My mother used to tell about an 
aunt of hers — pass me the doughnuts, Alice — who said 
she wouldn’t marry a sailor, an old man, a widower, a 
cross-eyed man, a poor man, a man who smoked or 
lived in the country, a man who limped, or a man who 
persuaded her against her own will, and she married 
all nine objections in one. He had to ask her five 
times, though.” 

‘ 1 He would have had to ask me five hundred and 
fifty-five times,” said Shar, with considerable warmth. 

4 ‘W as that Aunt Hittie ? ” asked Mr. Burbank. 
“ She was as contented as a kitten with her cross-eyed, 
lame, old husband, waited on him hand and foot, and 
as good to his seven children as though she was their 
own mother.” 

‘ ‘ Girls never do know their own minds, ’ ’ replied 
Mrs. Burbank, with serenest content. 

“ I am going to the village,” said Mr. Burbank, as 
he arose from the table ; “ do you want anything ? ’ ’ 

“ Yes,” answered Shar ; “ go into the shop and see 
if they want another hand on shoes.” 

“Oh, sho’ now,” he ejaculated good-naturedly, “I 
sha’n’t do any such thing.” 

“ Then I will,” said Shar. 

Two hours later she ran upstairs, tapped at Eliza- 
beth’s door, then burst in, the most radiant Shar Eliza- 
beth had ever beheld. 

“ What do you think has happened to me ? A letter 


252 


GOLDENROD FARM 


just now from your dear Parson Hamilton ; he has 
found a position for me in the grammar department, 
the lowest grade. A teacher died suddenly — almost in 
the schoolroom — and he has had my name before the 
Board a whole year. My hope was all ebbing out of 
me ; I was at the last gasp. Father said I shouldn’t 
go back to the shoes. I never quite lost the hope of a 
school ; I have studied nights and kept up with every- 
thing. Mother kissed me just now when the letter 
came. That was almost as good as the letter.” 

Elizabeth drew her head down and gave her the 
second kiss of congratulation. 

“You must come and stay with me all the school 
year ; I have been lonely, thinking of going to that big, 
empty house,” said Elizabeth, sympathetic with Shar’s 
thought, as Shar understood. 

“ I will pay my board,” said Shar independently. 

‘ ‘ Of course you may, ” said Elizabeth with a happy 
little laugh, “ that is what I want you to come for.” 

“ He will be here in the noon train ; my letter came 
in the early mail. He said he had several things to 
talk about.” 

Elizabeth dared not lift her eyes to the woman stand- 
ing before the fire. She would never dare even to ask 
to be forgiven. 

‘ ‘ Shar, can you stay with Elizabeth this afternoon ? ’ ’ 
asked Deborah Morse turning to the girls. “I would 
like to walk to the cottage ; I find I left there a pack- 
age of unanswered letters, and one of them must be 
answered to-day.” 


OFFERINGS 


253 


44 But you will not see him, then,” said Shar ; 44 he 
said he could stay but two hours as he had an engage- 
ment.” 

44 Not this time.” 

4 ‘ I shall be glad to come, but I am sorry you have 
to go ; couldn’t I go for the letters? ” 

“No, thank you.” 

The two hours’ call was very short to both the girls ; 
Miss Morse returned from her walk at dusk. 

Elizabeth talked of Shar’s schoolwork, but had no 
word to say about Parson Hamilton. He left his 
regret that he did not have the pleasure of seeing Miss 
Morse ; but it was Shar who gave the message. 

4 ‘ I have written to Harry that I will go to him as 
soon as you are able to go home, Elizabeth,” Miss 
Morse said that evening. 

4 4 But I wanted you to go home with me, ’ ’ half 
sobbed Elizabeth. 

“Not this time, dear. Harry writes .that he will 
take a flat and wishes me to be his housekeeper this 
winter.” 

“I am so glad — and so disappointed.” Elizabeth 
kept the tears back, but her voice trembled. 

4 4 And so tired and ready for beef tea, ’ ’ her nurse 
said smilingly. 

Then, from her tone and the look in her eyes, Eliza- 
beth knew that she was forgiven. 

The next afternoon Elizabeth said : 4 4 1 want to talk 
a little ; I haven’t talked for the longest while, and you 
are going away. I am full of kinks.” Miss Morse 


254 


GOLDENROD FARM 


brought herself and her work (she was helping Shar 
with a school dress) to Elizabeth’s old-fashioned wooden 
rocker, cushioned with a pink and white quilt. 

“ Shar doesn’t think much about dress,” Elizabeth 
began. 

‘ ‘ She thinks enough to keep herself neat and 
pretty. ’ ’ 

4 ‘But that’s never been enough at our house; we 
have a dressmaker in the house all the time for the five 
of us, making and changing ; and, oh, the changing ! 
Martha is never satisfied unless she is a picture ; she 
designs some of her dresses. I was so tired of it all 
that once I declared I would choose one color and one 
style and never change. Dressing takes a great deal 
of thinking.” 

‘ ‘ I think that is why I decided to wear gray and 
black. My blacks and grays are fine in tint and soft 
in texture ; I do not have to make repeated choices in 
dress, and the fret of repeated choices is saved me.” 

“There’s something in Numbers about dress, about 
fringe and ribband. If you will give me my Bible I will 
find it,” replied Elizabeth. 

Sister Deborah was watching the ways of this Bible 
student. The marked places in Numbers were nu- 
merous. 

‘ ‘ Here it is : ‘ Speak unto the children of Israel, and 
bid them that they make fringes in the borders of their 
garments throughout their generations, and that they 
put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue ; 
and it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye look upon 


OFFERINGS 


255 


it and remember all the commandments of the Lord to 
do them/ ” she read. “ I suppose that was worth 
while then.” 

“And worth while now. God cares that our dress 
should remind us of himself and his will. Not that 
every time we think of our dress we should think of him 
in so many thoughts, but that our dress should lead us 
to him instead of away from him.” 

“ Yours leads you to him,” said Elizabeth, with ad- 
miring eyes on the soft gray dress. 

1 ‘ It does not lead me away from him ; the question 
of dress is settled once for all for me. That is my way ; 
it does not have to be your way. I am fifty-five and 
you are not twenty-five. In your life there may be 
somebody to care whether you dress in one color or an- 
other ; there has been no one to care for my dress since 
my mother died.” 

“ I love your dress,” said Elizabeth. “ I am glad 
I can link a thought with my dress.” 

After a moment she said : “I have a confession to 
make. I never told anybody but Mark. I told him 
all the bad there was in me. Dress was such a tempta- 
tion to me when I was about seventeen. I knew every 
day of my life that I was not beautiful like my sisters 
or like anybody; and dress did make such a difference to 
me. You can’t think; I have made myself look almost 
pretty. I ‘ make up well ’ our dressmakers always say. 
And the thought I gave it and the money I spent appals 
me to remember. The girls in Bible class told Mr. Ham- 
ilton they wished I would not come. One girl actually 


256 


GOLDENROD FARM 


stayed away because she was ashamed of her dress 
beside mine.” 

“Yes,” said Sister Deborah. 

“ I don’t know how I got over it. Parson Hamil- 
ton talked to me one afternoon in his study, and prayed 
with me. Oh, those talks and prayers in his study ! 
I think the angels must love that study. My sisters 
did not like what he said to me. They said my mother 
made a great mistake in choosing him for my guardian, 
and that he overstepped his bounds. But he never 
flinched. Girls do have snares, Sister Deborah.” 

“You have been saved from many,” said Miss 
Morse. 

“ But I have had enough. Now I want to tell you 
about something else in another line ; are you tired of 
listening ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Are you tired of talking ? ’ ’ 

“You don’t know,” she burst out afresh, “how 
hard I prayed to know God’s will about something I 
wanted to do. It is all over now. The girls were 
against it, and I did not ask Parson Hamilton.” 

“ May I interrupt you just here ? Why were you so 
anxious to know his will about this one thing ? Do you 
not desire every day and event in your life to be gov- 
erned by him ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Because I wanted this more than anything. I took 
it for granted that other things were going on all 
right.” 

‘ ‘ To quote Ruskin : ‘ Every duty we omit obscures 
a truth we might have known.’ ” 


\ 


OFFERINGS 257 

“You think if I had done just the right thing every- 
day I shouldn’t have been in such bewilderment to 
know what to do ? I suppose I hadn’t. I had lost my 
way. It was terrible the way I felt. I hope no one 
else ever felt so. I w T ould have forced Him if I could to 
speak to me and tell me what his will was. I could not 
understand why he did not tell me if he wished me to 
know it. ’ ’ 

After a pause Miss Morse spoke: “ You did not 
want to know his will that you might know what he 
would have you do ; but his plan for you, that you 
might see if he were willing for you to do that very thing 
that your heart was set on doing. There’s a vast differ- 
ence between desiring to know God’s will that you may 
obey him and his will concerning the plan of your life ; 
the wide difference between self-surrender that seeks his 
will and your own unsurrendered will that seeks only 
approval of your own plans. You are believer enough 
to accept his will as your inexorable fate, and hoping 
that it might be in your favor, you would compel him 
to make it known. 

“ It was not out of any love for his will, but that you 
might discern if this inexorable fate were on the side of 
your will. As it was not a sinful thing you hoped to 
do, there was great hope that this inexorable will would 
allow it. An entirely surrendered will would have 
waited with no thought of compelling the divine revela- 
tion. To seek to force God with our importunity to 
reveal his plan for us before his own time is insubor- 
dination, rebellion. Your time had not come to act.” 

R 


258 


GOLDENROD FARM 


“ Oh, no ; there was nothing I could really do ; I 
only wanted to know 7 .” 

“We have no right to ask to be released from the 
suspense of not knowing what he would have us do to- 
morrow ; that suspense is often harder for flesh and 
blood than direct denial.” 

“ It was the suspense I couldn’t stand. ” 

‘ 4 Do you see now that you w T ere a rebel ? ’ ’ 

“ Yes ; I know I felt like one — I know now that I 
felt rebellious then.” 

‘ ‘ Did God answer you ? ’ ’ 

“ No ; I stayed in the dark. That w r as a year ago ; 
now I see that it would not have been good for me in 
any way. Was I a rebel and an unbeliever ? ” . 

‘ ‘ In the measure that you would have forced God to 
speak to you. ’ ’ 

“ It was a large measure.” 

“ Let me quote Ruskin again : ‘ The probability be- 
ing that what God does not allow you to see, he does 
not wish you to see, nor even to think of. ’ ” 

Miss Morse was trimming the dark green dress with 
dark green velvet ; she had said to Shar that the work 
would be her congratulation. 

Elizabeth played with a piece of velvet before she 
spoke again. “You will let me write to you and ask 
you questions ? ’ ’ 

“ Every day if you will.” 

“ I wanted to ask this : I suppose it makes a differ- 
ence whether you pray for yourself or for somebody 
else?” 


OFFEKINGS 


259 


* 

‘ ‘ I know of but one prayer that we can with full 
assurance make for another — the gift of the Holy 
Spirit. We know that God is willing to give him to 
them who ask for themselves and for others ; but other 
things, to make plans for them in our prayers — we 
should step softly. Your own life you have lived all 
along with God ; by spiritual insight you learn your 
own self ; you cannot know another as you know your- 
self. Not knowing this other, how can you know what 
material blessings would be best for his growth and dis- 
cipline ? Impulsive Peter, thinking he knew how to 
plan and how to pray, not only planned for Moses and 
Elias, but for Christ himself. How that prayer of 
Peter has helped me to understand myself. He would 
make three tabernacles and keep Moses and Elias from 
returning to heaven, and keep Christ from his cross. 
Our prayers for others are often for the building of 
such tabernacles. While he yet prayed God’s voice was 
speaking to him : ‘ Hear him.’ Listen to Christ. Do 
not plan for him. Peter wist not what to say, but he 
had to say something. When we wist not what to say 
let us say nothing. ‘ Hear him.’ ” 

4 ‘ And how I have prayed for people ; for everything 
I wanted for them ; for each of my sisters and for Shar. 
My prayers would have hindered this school for her. 
And Mary Mainwaring — I have wanted her life to be 
different. I am a busybody in other men’s matters in 
my prayers,” confessed Elizabeth. 

“It’s queer about you,” said her counselor and 
sympathizer. 


260 


GOLDENROD FARM 


44 But you were never so bad as that.” 

“Oh, no; I never was bad at all,” said Sister 
Deborah smiling. 44 Let me tell you this one thing to 
remember forever : it is the Holy Spirit who teaches us 
what things to ask for, for we know not as we ought 
to know ; he knows the mind of God ; he knows that 
God is eager for you to ask what he is eager to give. 

4 Building up yourselves ’ ; you must build up yourself 
4 on your most holy faith/ ” 

44 Yes,” said Elizabeth ; 44 I must add, build on faith. 
I am standing on that with my two feet.” 

44 Then 4 praying in the Holy Ghost/ ” 

The truth thrilled Elizabeth from head to foot ; her 
prayers might be in this Spirit of truth that had come 
to abide with her forever. 

It was worth all she had suffered, all she had sinned, 
to come to this knowledge, this Comforter. This was 
the way the Holy Spirit comforted. How she could 
rest, enfolded in God’s truth. She was too happy to 
speak for a while. 

Deborah Morse understood. Had she not been a 
rash, headlong girl herself? Did she not every day 
live over her youth in this girl, her latest discovery in 
girls ? 

44 Shar must go to-morrow morning. Are you go- 
ing too, to leave me forlorn? ” she asked. 

4 4 1 will take you home and stay a week. Harry is 
coming for a week to comfort Uncle Mark, and we will 
return together. Do you like that? ” 

44 Ho,” said Elizabeth. 


OFFERINGS 


261 


The October days were chilly on the shore, and the 
doctor decided that she would gain strength more 
quickly at home. Early in the month she went home. 
Parson Hamilton came to escort nurse and patient. 
The summer was over ; Spring Street was like autumn 
again with the yellow and red leaves dropping on the 
pavement and into the gutter. 

One afternoon, a week after the home-coming, she 
gathered in the library three of the people she loved 
best, Shar, Mary Mainwaring, and Deborah Morse. 
In the twilight they sat before the fire on the hearth : 
Shar in her green school dress, Mary Mainwaring in 
her mourning of dull black, Sister Deborah in the soft- 
est gray, with collar and cuffs of softest white ; and 
Elizabeth, for a freak perhaps, had arrayed herself in 
a black dress with a crimson vest, that she might look 
like that “ girl ” of precious memory to Parson Hamil- 
ton. 

Mary Mainwaring said in a tone of discontent, notic- 
ing one of the small books on the table : ‘ ‘ Elizabeth, 
why will you read the Greek Testament when you can 
read English ? ’ ’ 

Elizabeth answered with demure mischievousness : 
“ An old gentleman with short-sighted eyes used to sit 
in front of us in church and hold his Greek Testa- 
ment close to his eyes while Parson Hamilton read the 
English. He — the reader of Greek — had traveled 
everywhere in Bible lands and dug up monuments and 
read insertions, and I thought the Greek Testament 
helped him to travel and dig, and it will be a begin- 


262 


GOLDENROD FARM 


nin g for me ; but alas, I haven’t dug up a monument 
yet.” 

The gentlemen in the hall laughed as Elizabeth’s 
words and tone reached them. The four ladies arose 
to welcome Parson Hamilton and his guest, Harry 
Morse. 

As they talked lightly and gravely before the drift- 
wood fire, Elizabeth fell into a sudden silence ; she 
missed her sister Isabel. 

No home gathering was complete without Isabel. 
Harry Morse would take Sister Deborah away ; Shar 
would be absorbed in school ; Mary Mainwaring was 
never enough ; she was homesick at home. 

44 I am very sorry for people who have plenty of 
money, ’ ’ said Shar, in the fullness of her content ; 4 4 it 
is such a pleasure to twist people and things around 
and have them come out more than just right.” 

44 Don’t be sorry,” advised Elizabeth; “perhaps 
they do not have plenty of something else.” 

4 4 But what pleasure can there be equal to buying a 
dress for your mother, the prettiest one she has had for 
years, and a set of Barnes’ Notes for your father, and 
the daintiest pair of gloves for your sister ? ’ ’ 

44 I know how you enjoy it,” replied Mary Mainwar- 
ing ; 4 4 although I never earned a cent in my life. ’ ’ 

44 That reminds me,” said Harry, 44 that the grand- 
father of Emerson used to pray that none of his de- 
scendants might be rich.” 

44 Sometimes I wish,” said Elizabeth, homesick and 
miserable, 44 that I had no love for anybody in the 


OFFERINGS 


263 


world. To love hard hurts hard, and I love what I 
love so much more than I hate what I hate. I think I 
will build a hut on my farm and live alone and not 
love anybody ; that is my present ideal of perfect 
bliss. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I live alone and it is far from my ideal of perfect 
bliss/’ replied Harry Morse, after a glance at the clock 
on the mantel and stooping to toss on the flames a bit of 
wood. 

“ But you love people ; I sha’n’t love anybody,” per- 
sisted Elizabeth. “ I w T ish I did not love your aunt one 
bit ; it is only torture to love her and have her go 
away. ’ ’ 

“ So I used to think ; but now I have her back 
again,” he said joyously ; “ and why can you not come 
and spend the winter with us ? ” 

“ And leave me?” said Shar. 

“ And me?” said Parson Hamilton. 

‘ ‘ And me ? ’ ’ said Mary Mainwaring. 

“Now, don’t you see,” she argued, “that it would 
be happier for you all not to love me ? ’ ’ 

“Perhaps we don’t — all,” said Harry. 

“ But there are so many people in the world,” rea- 
soned Shar, “and such good, delightful, congenial 
people, that I think it is safe to keep hoping that we 
shall live with some of them some day if we don’t now,” 
she ended, with a laugh. 

“That isn’t to-day; it’s to-morrow,” complained 
Elizabeth. “ Just now, if one or two more people were 
here, and here to stay ” 


264 


GOLDENROD FARM 


4 4 I regret that we do not satisfy all your devotion, ’ ’ 
said Harry teasingly. 

44 Oh, I love you all well enough.” 

44 But we don’t love you well enough ; is that it? ” 

4 4 No,” she answered sincerely. 44 You love me too 
much, all of you.” 

44 1 don’t,” said Harry. 

44 Harry,” reproved his aunt laughing, 44 keep still.” 

4 4 1 will if she will, ’ ’ he promised. 

4 4 1 will not, ’ ’ said Elizabeth ; 4 4 but I wish you 
would. ’ ’ 

At that moment there was a stir at the street door, 
voices and steps in the hall, a face seen as the portiere 
was pushed aside ; and Elizabeth, with a cry of joy, 
sprang up to be held fast in the arms of her sister Isabel. 

4 4 Who knew it ? ” demanded Elizabeth when she 
could speak. 

44 1 did,” said Parson Hamilton. 

44 1 did,” repeated Sister Deborah. 

44 1 did,” chimed in Shar. 

44 1 did,” echoed Mary Main waring. 

44 1 did,” admitted Harry Morse, 44 and I was burst- 
ing to tell. Didn’t you see me watching the clock? ” 

44 No ; I thought you were watching me,” said Eliza- 
beth. 

4 4 1 had an eye for both, and an ear in the street for 
the carriage.” 

44 But where’s Martha ? ’ ’ asked Elizabeth with sudden 
recollection. 

44 Immersed in Europe. 4 Better fifty years of Eu- 


OFFERINGS 


265 


rope ’ for her. She sent her love to you and said she 
was never coming home.” 

“ Isabel, you are as beautiful as you can be,” cried 
Elizabeth, throwing herself again into her sister’s arms, 
“ and I don’t want anything in the world now.” 

‘ ‘ I thought I was quite a plotter about my letter ; I 
managed that you should hear from me while I was on 
the way home ; I was afraid you might be anxious if 
we were overdue, and we were, seventeen hours. Mr. 
Hamilton and I had a cablegram or two passed between 
us.” 

“ But there was nobody to meet you at the station,” 
demurred Elizabeth. 

“ As if Hinchley hadn’t been at the trains all day,” 
said Shar ; “ and you were too busy to know or care.” 

As soon as they were alone together Isabel said : “ I 
have news for you. Martha always said that she was 
the one in the family that nothing happened to. And 
something has happened to her at last. She is engaged 
to Luke Lefferts.” 

Elizabeth’s pale lips uttered no sound. Martha had 
not been ‘ ‘ delivered ’ ’ from one who did not believe. 

“Why, child, aren’t you glad? Don’t look as if 
you were going to faint.” 

“ I can’t be glad. What does she do it for ? ” 

“ Because she loves him ; isn’t that what a true 
woman marries for ? ’ ’ 

“No,” said Elizabeth, “she shouldn’t only marry 
the man she loves best, but she should love the best 

f i 


man. 


266 


GOLDENROD FARM 


‘ ‘ He is the best man to her, ’ ’ said Isabel lightly ; 
“ wait till you know him better. They will be married 
in the spring. Martha will stay with Cynthia in Paris 
and come home for their wedding tour. The girls wish 
us to buy their share of this house ; you and I will have 
the ‘ Old Maid’s Paradise.’ ” 

That night, with the door of her sleeping room opened 
into Isabel’s, Elizabeth slept like her happy seven -year- 
old -self, when to awake in the morning and find Isabel 
was all the joy she asked of life. 

Then, like that child of seven, after the first hour of 
the morning, she demanded more of life, and before 
they went together into the breakfast room she had 
won her sister’s willing consent to her plan of building 
a small ami pretty house on her “ tumbledown ” prop- 
erty, to give the management of the farm to the father 
and mother of the baby without arms, and if she 
could find two or three babies with ‘ ‘ crooked feet, ’ ’ to 
have them there for a summer home with a nurse. 

“ It will take money, Elizabeth.” 

“ That is what my money is for,” said Elizabeth ; 
“ don’t you know we give ourselves first and then our 
money? I used to think money wasn’t worth much, 
but now I know it is worth all it can do.” 

“You have been cultivating the cornfield of your 
mind and I the pleasure-ground of mine,” answered 
Isabel, quoting from Archbishop Whately ; “I think 
I shall like your cornfield.” 

“Isabel, I knew you would. Now I don’t want 
anything in the world.” 


CHAPTER XX 


HER OWN HOUSE 

I will go forth ’mong men, not mailed in scorn, 

But in the armor of a pure intent. 

Great duties are before me and great songs, 

And, whether crowned or crownless when I fall, 

It matters not, so as God’s work is done. 

— Alexander Smith. 

Pure living, tenderness to human needs. 

— Whittier. 

T HE children in the street were making a bonfire ; 
Elizabeth stood at the window watching them. 
Twenty -four years ago, one October afternoon, she 
had stood a little thing in white, watching the boys and 
girls among the leaves and asking her sister Isabel if 
she might go out and play with the children in the 
street. She was a child of seven that day ; she was 
a woman of thirty -one to-day. 

That day she begged for more words ; this day she 
had the words — she had her heart’s desire, a houseful 
of people. 

Shar Burbank was one of the people ; this year the 
teacher had been made principal of the grammar 
school department ; her home was still with Eliza- 
beth. Her sister Alice married Joe Cummings a year 
after Shar went to Portland to teach ; he was the best 

267 


268 


GOLDENROD FAR 


husband in the world, Alice said, and Shar believed that 
he was — for Alice. 

Shar’s mother was very happily satisfied ; Alice had 
a good husband and Shar had a good home and a good 
position. There was no one at home to hurry her, and 
her old husband never fretted if the lamps were not 
filled until dark, and the ironing not finished until 
Saturday night. 

Shar wrote to her mother every week and sent her 
dresses to look pretty in for her husband, who still 
declared that she was prettier than her girls. 

The pine cottage was filled with boarders every sum- 
mer, and Mrs. Wentworth, who still kept her position 
as saleswoman, spent her vacations at Goldenrod Farm 
and paid her board. 

Mr. and Mrs. Julius Wentworth were still abroad. 
Mary Mainwaring often wondered how he had ex- 
plained his defalcation to his wife. His wife never told. 
It was enough for her that she believed him more 
sinned against than sinning, weak, but not wicked. 

Mr. and Mrs. Luke Lefferts bought the handsome 
house on Danforth Street from the heirs of the Benson 
estate. Mrs. Lefferts was said to be the best dressed 
lady in the city ; her husband was proud of her and 
loved her. 

Uncle Mark, dear Uncle Mark, lived solitary but 
one year ; then he went to sleep. 

Elizabeth became very dear to him during that one 
year. She and Harry Morse were with him the day he 
died. 


HER OWN HOUSE 


269 


Jessica stayed two years in England, then became 
homesick for her sisters. She is still herself ; no one 
can think of Jessica as being unlike herself, very sun- 
shiny and sweet, believing that this world is a happy 
place to live in, if one is wise enough not to take one’s 
troubles too much to heart. 

Isabel is the same ‘ ‘ charming Miss Gray ’ ’ ; but, and 
no one thinks it queer, she is growing to be like her 
youngest sister ; she takes almost as much interest in 
“The Mary Hamilton Home” as its founder. The 
baby without arms is her peculiar charge. 

The Mainwaring home across the street has had few 
changes. 

There are white locks among Mary’s curls, and the 
curls are twisted in a grown-up style in a knot at the 
back of her head ; she does not wear a red dress, but 
the brown one is equally becoming, and she imagines 
that she “looks older ” in brown. 

On Miranda Mainwaring’ s finger the diamond cluster 
does not blaze, and if she misses it, she is glad to miss 
it ; she dropped it one day into the fund for the Arme- 
nian sufferers. It was the best she had to give. Her 
father and mother are older and dearer than ever to 
the two “girls. ” 

They speak of old Mark Benson and Louise, “Not 
as we willed, but as God willed.” 

Faith Cottage has been enlarged ; every summer 
since that first one, Elizabeth has stayed two months 
with Sister Deborah, as co-worker in Bible teaching. 
She has studied the Bible with ‘ ‘ helps ’ ’ and without 


270 


GOEDENROD FARM 


“ helps/’ under Parson Hamilton, every winter. Her 
Sunday-school girls have grown to womanhood under 
her faithful and enthusiastic teaching. One of them 
made her grateful and very happy by the remark : “I 
think you must have lived in Bible times. ” 

Parson Hamilton’s mother died in a happy old age ; 
he said her prayers were his blessing, her faith was his 
fortune. His sister Harriet was his good housekeeper, 
but never had been congenial as a friend. They loved 
each other, but never well enough to understand each 
other. He told his people that he was growing old, 
but they did not believe it. 

Doctor Harry Morse still gives his life to the poor, 
but it is to the poor in the city of Portland. He takes 
a rich patient when he has time. 

Among the children playing in the leaves and watch- 
ing the bonfire is a child of five ; she shouts and claps 
her hands, and nods to her mother standing in the 
library window. Her sister, three years old, is out 
driving with Aunt Isabel and Aunt Martha ; the baby 
brother is asleep in the nursery. The girls are De- 
borah and Isabel, the boy is Mark. 

Aunt Deborah’s winter home is in Portland. She 
finds work in Parson Hamilton’s church, and a happy 
home with her nephew Harry and his wife Elizabeth. 

“Now I have my houseful of people,” Elizabeth 
said jubilantly. 

It is one of her dreams — but, of course, a crazy 
dream, she tells herself — that her dear Parson Hamil- 
ton will finish his beautiful life at her fireside. 


HER OWN HOUSE 


271 


That is only a dream, as his sister Harriet is depend- 
ent upon him ; but one thing is not a dream, and that 
is, that she keeps a secret bank account for him, and 
loves to think of his own fireside in some place where 
he may do faithful work in his eventide. 

She never dared confess to him how she 4 ‘ dared.’ ’ 
If she broke her word to him and did not keep his 
secret, it might trouble him to learn her disloyalty, 
and interrupt his friendly intimacy with “that girl” 
who was like herself. Not even to her husband did she 
make this confession. 

One day at Faith Cottage when Parson Hamilton 
and his ‘ ‘ two deaconesses, ’ 9 as he often spoke of Miss 
Morse and Miss Main waring, were talking in the fra- 
grant twilight on the piazza, Elizabeth said to him, 
standing at his side with her hand on his shoulder : 
“You are not growing old, Parson Hamilton, like 
Parson Smith of sacred memory and three wives.” 

“ No,” he replied, holding the child Deborah on his 
knee a trifle closer, ‘ ‘ I am content to be like Parson 
Paul. He had his Tryphena and Tryphosa.” 

‘ ‘ I wonder if those Roman ladies were as charming 
and efficient as our Mary and Deborah,” she said. 

“ Oh, hush,” murmured Mary Mainwaring, with the 
wild rose in her cheek. 

Miss Morse’s glance included Parson Hamilton and 
the laughing eyes above his head; without any wild 
rose flush she said something about Paul’s helpers “who 
labored much in the Lord.” 

Elizabeth’s penciled promise on the board wall in 


272 


GOLDENROD FARM 


her pine chamber, the command with a promise — for it 
has come to be a command in her life — was as distinct 
as ever the last time that just to look at it she went up 
the cottage stairway. 

With the years it has taken on a new meaning ; not 
only that her desires had the promise of being granted, 
which at first was the sole significance to her unsatis- 
fied heart, but that the delight in the Lord would give 
her the desires. How could she know what to desire 
until she delighted in him, his will, his ways, his word, 
in himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? 

She has taught the words to the child Deborah, and 
told her the story of something of their meaning to 
her. 

Once when her father said: 4 ‘ What does delight 
mean, Debby? ” the child answered," The Mary Ham- 
ilton Home and little lame children.” 

" That’s mamma’s delight,” he answered. " I hope 
my little daughter will have as blessed a one.” 

Professor Burbank is president of his college ; he has 
written a book with a title that Elizabeth never re- 
members. He is unmarried. 

She has told her husband that she is not ambitious 
for him, quoting, as the spring of his life, "an over- 
mastering devotion to Jesus Christ and a joyous passion 
for humanity. ’ ’ 


THE END. 















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